Study of Green House Gas Emissions in Solid Waste Landfills of Puducherry using WARM software

Abstract

Solid waste management is one of the challenging and important global concern today especially in developing countries due to its adverse impacts on the environment. Solid waste disposal sites that include both open dumps and landfills are recognized as the major GHG emission sources in developing countries by the researchers. This paper is an attempt to study the Green House Gas emissions from the Municipal Solid Waste disposal sites in Puducherry, India; compared with the reduction that can be brought by using alternative methods of treatment of solid waste .This study compares the greenhouse gas emissions from the unscientific method of landfilling adopted in the area with proposed scientific alternative for each category of waste using the software Waste Reduction Model (WARM) developed by US EPA. This study involves secondary data collected from the Puducherry Union territory and suggests various scientific approaches that can be implemented by the NGO’s and Government to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions due to solid waste disposal.