Compostable plastics in landfill
If the trend continues, in the use of Petroleum fossil fuel plastics, by 2050 there will be 12 billion metric tons of plastic in landfills around the world.
Gasses from organic matter
The two main ‘bulk’ gaseous emissions from landfill, that are having an effect on global warming are methane (63% average) and carbon dioxide (33% average).
Location location location
Once a landfill site is full, it is covered with a couple of meters of soil. Gas outlet pipes our placed in the site to allow methane and carbon dioxide to escape. The location of the site will affect whether the site is hot, cold, wet or dry. This will influence whether the site is suitable for biodegradable or inorganic waste.
About 60% of landfill sites in the UK are for biodegradable materials, such as newspaper, card packaging, textiles, nappies etc.
Compostable plastics in landfill - it's all about perspective
Most current UK waste management streams do not allow for natural plastics that are made from compostable plant starch called PLA (which is what we manufacture). Ideally compostable plastics should be recycled, as they have a very high recycling waste value in terms of economics and environmental benefit. If PLA cannot be recycled, the next best alternative is to incinerate the waste in a waste to energy incineration plant. Compostable plastics are classed as clean energy when combusted.
Compostable plastics can also be composted industrially in industrial anaerobic digestion plants (currently there are 48 in UK). Depending on the thickness it can also be composted at home.
Holy Cow - a perspective
If in a landfill site with 65% humidity, the amount of methane generated by 1 tonne of compostable plastics in a year is about .094kg which has a global warming potential over 100 years 28 times the impact of carbon dioxide. So 2.632kg CO2e per year
If we took all of the possible global capacity for our bio plastic material and put it into a landfill site today, it would emit the same amount of methane/CO2 as 2523 cows a year. If we deducted our material from the production of fossil fuel plastics, the petroleum plastics would be the equivalent of 98 million cows a year.
Landfill gas to electricity extraction sites
There are 414 sites in the UK turning landfill bio gas into electricity, with a total capacity of 900MW producing about 3.04TWh of green electricity in the last year (2018). This is enough to power Leeds for a year.
Municipal solid waste from the landfill gas can generate 56 kWh per tonne of waste.
As a company sku-driver, inset (not offset) 3p per kg of our material produced to dairy farmers (the equivalent of 39p a litre of milk production).
The money goes to helping to lower the farmers energy use, reducing amps of equipment, solar panels etc, the farming community is working to lower the carbon footprint of their cow by developing new feeds (that don't make the cow so, er windy). We help them to reduce the carbon emissions per litre of milk.
Conclusion
We cannot change the world in a day, we cannot fix the waste streams in a day, or the demand for fossil fuel plastics. We can give you the option to reduce carbon emissions by 67% and avoid petroleum base plastics today.