Municipal waste landfill permitting in Pennsylvania

Conference · Fri Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:381448

Mentzer, G F

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has 50 permitted municipal waste landfills (MWL) with calculated capacities ranging from 0.5 to 25.3 million tons. The most common size for our landfills is in the range of 3 to 5 million tons, with three landfills exceeding the 20+ million ton capacity. Future expansion projects will increase a few landfills to in excess of 35+ million tons. Exact VOC emission numbers are not available since not all landfills have or are required to report their emissions to the Pennsylvania air emissions database. However, estimates from several of our larger facilities indicates the uncontrolled VOC emissions are in the range of 250 to 350 TPY with a possible high of 580 TPY. Although the numbers are not exact, it does point out the fact that landfills are a major source of VOC emissions. With the advent of the Environmental Protection Agency`s (EPA) proposed New Source Performance Standards (Subpart WWW) and emissions guidance (Subpart Cc), the EPA declared that the MWL are a source of air pollution. Following the release of these proposed regulations, the Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Air Quality began in mid 1994 the task of permitting landfills. Through the use of customized forms G(A) and G(B), the Department made in 1995 its first attempt to identify and quantify emissions from its landfills. The process of quantifying and verifying emission estimates is still on going. To date, the Department is in various stages of permitting eight MWL.

• OSTI ID: 381448
• Report Number(s): CONF-9603165--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION CONTROL
FORECASTING
MONITORING
MUNICIPAL WASTES
PENNSYLVANIA
SANITARY LANDFILLS
VAPORS
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT