Methane emissions from landfills in Serbia and potential mitigation strategies: a case study

Open dumping and landfilling have represented the predominant method of waste management in Serbia during the past decades. This practice resulted in over 3600 waste disposal sites distributed all over the country. The locations of the sites and their characteristics have been determined in the framework of the presented study. The vast majority of disposal sites (up to 3300) are characterized by small deposition depth of waste and total waste volumes of less than 10,000 m(3). Only about 50 landfills in Serbia contain more than 100,000 m(3) of waste. These large landfills are responsible for more than 95% of the total CH(4) emissions from waste disposal, which was assessed as 60,000 tons of CH(4) in 2010. The evaluation of different measures [soil cover, compost cover and landfill gas (LFG) systems] for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from Serbian landfills indicated that enhanced microbial CH(4) oxidation (using a compost cover), as well as the installation of LFG systems, could generate net revenues as saved CH(4) emissions are creditable for the European Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme. In total between 4 and 7 million tons of CO(2) equivalent emissions could be avoided within the next 20 years by mitigating CH(4) emissions from Serbian landfills.