Brick Plant Fueled by Landfill Gas
An Alabama brick manufacturing plant has been built next to a landfill specifically to use the landfill gas as fuel. The new Jenkins Brick Co.’s $56 million manufacturing plant marks the first time a major U.S. industrial facility has been put next to a landfill for this purpose.
The plant uses landfill gas to fuel its kilns, satisfying 40 percent of the plant’s energy needs initially, with 100 percent projected in 10 years as the landfill grows. The project also will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 62,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, the equivalent of planting nearly 14,700 acres of forest.
Jenkins Brick and Veolia Environmental Services, the owner of the landfill providing the gas, partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP) to create the first-of-its-kind landfill gas energy project. The facility is expected to benefit the local economy by creating approximately 55 new jobs.
Methane is the primary component of landfill gas, which results from the natural breakdown of buried waste in a landfill. Reducing methane emissions provides immediate environmental benefits because methane, a greenhouse gas, is over 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide at capturing heat in the atmosphere.