Waste treatment in waste treatment plants, 2001

Less than half of the landfills extracted methane

Methane emissions from landfills accounted for about 7 per cent of the Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions. Norway is obliged under the Kyoto protocol to restrict its GHG emissions. Methane was extracted from 41 out of 112 operative landfills in 2001. These 41 received 72 per cent of the waste that was landfilled in the 112. Corresponding figures for 1998 were 28 out of 149 receiving 51 per cent of the landfilled waste. 1,396,000 tonnes of waste were landfilled in 2001 compared with 1,928,000 in 1998.

Four times higher utilization

An increasing portion of the methane is being utilized as an energy source. While 14 per cent of the extracted gas was utilized in 1998, the percentage rose to 32 in 2001. This amounts to 1,300 and 6,000 tonnes of methane respectively. Methane makes up about half of the total amount of gas extracted from landfills.

More seepage cleansing

53 out of the 112 landfills had seepage cleansing. This corresponds to 64 per cent of the landfilled waste. The corresponding figure for 1998 was 56 per cent. 35 more landfills collected the seepage without cleansing.

Tables:

• Table 1 Purification of seepage and extraction of gas from landfills, by county. 2001