Landfills across the U.S. are the third-largest source of dangerous methane emissions and other toxic pollutants that are harming the health and safety of families and communities and accelerating the climate crisis. Landfills account for more than 14% of U.S. methane pollution, releasing as much greenhouse gases as 66 million gasoline-powered vehicles driving for a year.
With 3,000 active landfills and 10,000 closed landfills in this country, this pollution could be in your backyard. About two million people in the U.S. live within one mile of a landfill. Children, people of color, and people living in poverty are more likely to have homes close to a landfill and be impacted by its pollution.
EPA has said it’s planning to propose updated protections for harmful landfill methane—and new protections cannot come soon enough for our health or our warming climate.
Tell EPA: Keep Families Safe From Landfill Methane Pollution
The fight for methane protections has been at the core of Moms’ work for over a decade. Much of our focus is on cutting methane from oil and gas operations. But landfills are another potent source of this pollution.
Methane pollution from landfills comes from decomposing food waste and other organic material. A recent report from EPA found that 58% of methane emissions from landfills was due to food waste. And this is a major problem because methane, an aggressive climate pollutant, absorbs heat especially well and causes global warming much faster than carbon dioxide.
Updated EPA protections for landfill methane should incorporate existing and easy-to-implement solutions that are currently missing from the federal air pollution rules for certain landfills. These solutions can better measure methane emissions and other harmful air pollutants in the frontline communities that neighbor landfills. And they can reduce methane pollution overall, which is good for all of us and the planet.
Join Moms in telling EPA to safeguard our health and climate by proposing strong protections for landfill methane pollution ASAP.
Learn more about Moms’ work on methane.
Tell EPA: Keep Families Safe From Landfill Methane Pollution