We’ll be comparing waste to energy incineration with landfills to find out how you should handle your waste.
For the longest time, people have found that sending waste to landfills is the best way to handle whatever waste they have. Many people still send waste to landfills to this day. However, there are some places around the country that have shifted from this method and instead elected to start burning waste so they can convert it into energy. But which method is actually better to use? We’ll be comparing waste to energy incineration with landfills to find out how you should handle your waste.
How Each Method Uses Land
One of the benefits of waste to energy incineration is that the incinerators this method uses take up much less space than landfills use. There is residual ash that is produced by these incinerators, which means there has to be at least a little space allocated to landfills, but not nearly as much space as it would take sending waste to landfills directly.
Sending waste to landfills is becoming more expensive these days because of how much more scarce land can be now. It doesn’t lower the volume of waste, meaning more space is needed. Incinerators are able to take one ton of waste and condense it to only 600 pounds’ worth of ash, which puts into perspective how much space can be saved with waste to energy incineration.
Emissions
Wagons that bring waste to incinerators versus landfills have about the same level of impact on emissions of carbon. The distance needed to reach each landfill or incinerator can change that level of impact.
Waste to energy incineration has become much more efficient than it’s been in the past. It’s still a little less efficient than using landfills in terms of producing energy, but incinerators have come a long way. Incinerators also generate more CO2 than landfills for every unit of electricity.
Landfills, on the other hand, produce energy more effectively. However, while they don’t make as much CO2 as waste to energy incineration, they do produce methane, which is a stronger greenhouse gas. This is because of biodegradable waste that gets sent to landfills, which will then be decomposed with no oxygen. Some of this is able to be taken and burnt in order to create electricity, but the quantity that can be taken has been going down for a few years now. Some believe lower gas yields are the cause, which makes it more expensive to extract biodegradable waste, which will ultimately make it an economically ineffective method.
Choose AEG Environmental as Your Company for Waste to Energy Incineration Services
Our team can handle any type of waste you put in front of us. Don’t risk your safety and health! If there has been a hazardous mess of any kind, call us today and get the best waste management services available!