FEATURE
METHANE REDUCTION: KEEPING TO THE PLEDGE
Keeping an open mind towards how waste is handled has the power to drive real change in a bid to cutting the amount of methane we produce, suggests Dr Stephen Wise, Chief Strategic Development Officer for biotechnology business Advetec. Here, he outlines three actionable changes FMs can make to support the endeavour.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas responsible for around 30% of global warming to date. In a bid to turn back the clock on environmental damage and limit climate change to 1.5°C, more than 100 countries have signed up to The Global Methane Pledge, which commits them to reduce their overall emissions by 30% by 2030, compared with 2020 levels.
Methane – which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas – is generated under anaerobic conditions. The simple way to visualise this is a cow – the cow takes in food and breaks down within its stomach. As the food breaks down in the stomach, it generates methane which is expelled into the atmosphere.
Dr Stephen Wise, Chief Strategic Development Officer at Advetec, believes an open mind towards how waste is handled has the power to drive real change when it comes to methane reduction. He states that the Pledge, along with rising costs of landfill, waste segregation targets and the increasing value of the green pound, have created a perfect storm for businesses to make a difference by innovating the way they collect, treat and ultimately dispose of waste – but nothing can be done without education.
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“Just like a cow’s stomach, landfill is inherently an anaerobic system,” Dr Wise explains. “Waste goes into the ground, it’s covered by new waste the next day and very little air ingresses. This provides the perfect conditions for organic waste to break down and emit methane. There may be some gas collection infrastructure in place, but methane will always escape into the atmosphere as it’s a natural process.”
If you have waste contracts in place and work hard to segregate recycling on-site, you may be of the impression that you don’t send any waste to landfill sites and therefore don’t contribute to their associated methane emissions.
Dr Wise stresses that this isn’t the case. He says: “What many businesses don’t know is that despite efforts to recycle more, 50% of waste still goes to landfill or for incineration. This 50% is made up of mixed residual waste – the waste that can’t be segregated or sorted for recycling because it is contaminated with organic matter. This could be a half-empty drinks bottle, a yoghurt pot or a sandwich wrapper with crusts in, for example. This portion of waste often gets overlooked altogether but it’s the organic matter that produces methane under anaerobic conditions.
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