Bangladesh is in urgent need of a solution for the extreme climate change threat posed by unchecked methane emissions at the Matuail landfill.
The government formed a committee to look into the methane emission issue at the landfill in 2020, but it is yet to collect any data or make any visible progress.
According to a study by Canadian global emission monitoring company GHGSat, the Matuail landfill is emitting about 16 tons of methane every hour. This makes it the fourth highest source of methane emissions among landfills in the world.
The colourless and odourless methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, and the constant emissions are a leading driver of the increasingly sweltering summers in the country over the past few years.
This is not the first time that the dangerous levels of methane emissions at the Matuail landfill have been brought under the spotlight. GHGSat in 2020 reported that the landfill was emitting four tons of methane each hour.
In the wake of the earlier report, the Department of Environment (DoE) formed a 15-member committee to look into addressing the methane emission problem. However, financial hurdles have stopped the committee from even confirming how much methane is actually being emitted from the landfill.
Initially, the Bangladesh Space Research and Remote Sensing Organization (SPARRSO) was asked to analyse the satellite data from GHGSat. However, the plan was cancelled because the cost was prohibitive, said SPARRSO Chairman Md Zafar Ullah Khan.
“We contacted GHGSat to avail the satellite data, however, their asking price was so high that we had to move away from this plan,” he said.
Later, private organisation Waste Concern was given the task of measuring methane emissions from the Matuail landfill. The second and last meeting with the organization took place on July 14, 2020, and since then there has been no progress.
Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Secretary Mostafa Kamal said he was not aware of any development in measuring methane emissions at the landfill since he assumed his position in June 2021.
“A meeting might have been convened under one of our additional secretaries, but I have not heard any recent update over this issue,” said Secretary Kamal.
Is satellite data accurate?
Mirza Shawkat Ali Mirza, director of climate change and international convention of the DoE, is heading the project to measure the methane emissions.
“Waste Concern has been given the task of measuring the methane emissions from Matuail landfill. However, due to some procurement complications, it hasn’t progressed much. But we’re working on it and soon it will be over,” he said.
When asked for comment on the GHHSat 2021 report, the official expressed scepticism over the accuracy of the organization’s data as it was collected by satellite.
Dr Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder, professor at the department of environmental science at Stamford University Bangladesh and member of the DoE committee, said the nature of methane gas makes it more traceable by satellites than from the ground. Methane is three times lighter than CO2.
“We conducted a study from Stamford University a year ago at many locations of Dhaka, including the Matuail landfill. We found that the presence of methane was in the tolerable range. But here is the thing, since methane is such a light gas, it rises up in the atmosphere very quickly after production. Thus, on ground data is not 100% reliable,” he said.
“Right now, the problem is we don’t have any database regarding methane emissions. We neither can accept nor deny such reports of international organisations. That is why a complete database with a combination of both on site and satellite data is very important to assess the real situation,” he added.
When approached by Dhaka Tribune, Kirsten Robinson, communication officer of Mettle Communications Ltd, which handles public relations on behalf of GHGSat, said: “GHGSat satellites monitored landfill facilities all over the world in 2021. We ranked individual methane emissions detected from landfill facilities, and have listed the largest in the report - one of which was in Dhaka.”
GHGSat analysed satellite data of 47 countries across five continents from 500kms above the surface of the Earth.
The organization is planning further study of other methane emission hotspots in Bangladesh, such as the Aminbazar landfill at Savar.
DSCC procures gas analysers
Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), the authority responsible for looking after Matuail landfill, on November 25 acquired equipment including gas analysers, drones, and leachate measuring instruments to “monitor glitches in the current waste management system.”
Sufiullah Saddik Bhuiyan, executive engineer of waste management of DSCC, said: “these instruments will be used to measure detrimental gases like methane and the data will be disclosed on our website to make it available to the public.”
Asia holds the largest share of methane emissions
Asia is the largest emitter of methane, generating 69% of the methane in the world. It also stands first in landfill emissions with 55% of methane emissions, with India alone accountable for half of these emissions.
The largest sources of methane emissions in the world were the landfills of Buenos Aires which are emitting 36 tons of methane per hour, followed by Hong Kong with 27.5 tons, and Mumbai with 20.2 tons methane. After Dhaka, Lahore stands in fifth position with 10 tons of methane emitted per hour.
In 2021, their GHGSat captured 143 megatons methane emissions from all sources and the monthly average source emission rate increased threefold from January to December 2021, across all industries including oil and gas industries (44%), landfills (20%), coal (32%) and other (4%).
This amount of methane emissions amounts to 31.2 million cars driving on a road for a year.
