How do landfills make money

Now, there are many such companies. Companies like Clean Energy and Waste Management are able to profit from junk, due to a generous subsidy package from the US government. Federal tax breaks enables Clean Energy and other renewable energy gas companies to offer renewable gas at rates which are cheaper than diesel or gasoline per gallon. Another story of landfill profitability is Agilyx. The company has produced , gallons of renewable fuel using innovative technology. These plastic cannot be recycled as there could be contamination due to the mixing of different types of plastics.

This is because the Agilyx sells the basic technology which can be scaled up or down to match the needs of the buying companies. Yahya Jani, a researcher in the field of chemical engineering and environmental science has put forward the theory as well as the research that materials retrieved from landfills can be used in place of natural, raw materials.

In his published paper, he suggests that landfill mining could be a tool to achieve circular economy. Garbage need no longer be viewed as garbage, but as secondary resources to be used in various industries. He also invented a method which can be used to extract metals from glass waste. His method is effective for all old glass, including old computers and TV sets. In , methane from a landfill in Port Washington, New York, leaked underground and caused explosions in a nearby neighborhood.

Twenty years later, a dump with accumulated gas caused a blast that damaged over buildings in Mexico. Due to the risk it poses, and because methane is a powerful greenhouse gas linked to global warming, landfill owners today are required by law to collect gas—but compliance can be costly. The solution: Roll these problems into a business. A trash pile first begins producing methane after several weeks of sitting dormant; the older the organic trash, the more methane it generates.

To access the methane, an operator drills a series of wells in the layers of garbage and connects them to a vacuum, which extracts the gas. Pipes then capture and transfer it to a plant where high-voltage generators cool and purify it, removing carbon dioxide and dirt. Later, the renewable gas is trucked to fuel stations where it can power specially equipped buses and trucks. Vacuum-like pumps extract methane from deep underneath a landfill. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. America has long remained one of the most wasteful countries in the world, generating million metric tons of garbage every year, about 1, to 1, pounds per person.

While some view it as a threat to our environment and society, the solid waste management industry sees an opportunity. Two private companies, Waste Management and Republic Services, lead the solid waste management sector.

Together they own about landfills out of the 2, landfills across the United States. The two companies have seen staggering performance in the market, with the stock prices of both doubling in the past five years. Hoffman, a managing director at Stifel Financial.

Since its inception, landfills have made a majority of their revenue via tipping fees. These fees are charged to trucks that are dropping off their garbage based on their weight per ton. A landfill, either public or private, accepts refuse for a charge known as a tipping fee or gate fee. This charge varies from one landfill to the next and also varies according to the material which is dumped.

For public landfills, the tipping fees depend on rates set by the governing public authority. A private landfill sets its tipping fees based on competition and supply and demand; the more landfill area available, generally the lower the rates are going to be.

For that reason, landfills in western states -- where landfills are more numerous and customers less so -- tend to charge less. Landfills in the northeast, by contrast, charge the highest rates in the country.