California Garbage Trucks Run on Recycled Methane Gas from Dump

At Altamont Landfill and Resource Recovery Facility, the fleet of garbage trucks runs on methane gas derived from trash at the dump.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on September 06 2010

At California’s Altamont Landfill and Resource Recovery Facility, you’ll find 43 million tons of trash. But all that waste isn’t going to waste.

“We own this big pile of trash, and we need to look at it and think, ‘what can we do to get something out of it?’ Ken Lewis, director of landfill operations, told National Geographic News.

The answer, Lewis and his co-workers found, was extracting the methane gas that naturally occurs in the decomposing trash. Using a system of pumps, filters, tanks, and other equipment, the landfill workers extract and liquefy the methane gas. Then, the gas is transported to fueling stations, where it is used to fuel a fleet of 350 garbage trucks—which, in turn, will transport garbage that will later be turned into methane gas to power the trucks.

Though not every U.S. landfill would be suitable for a similar system, those that produce the right type of waste in high enough quantities would—so hundreds of landfills could begin producing methane gas with the proper equipment.

“What’s cool is you’ve got refuse trucks picking up waste, then fueling from garbage,” Steve Eckhardt of Linde, the group that consulted on extracting the methane, said. “It’s a closed loop.”

Filed under: Green,