Research: Common-sense standards can cut New York landfill methane nearly in half by 2050
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Elizabeth Schroeder
elizabeth@fullcirclefuture.org
Research: Common-sense standards can cut New York landfill methane nearly in half by 2050
Stronger landfill regulations would slash climate pollution, bring relief to the 1 in 3 New Yorkers who live near a landfill
Albany, NY – New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) can slash landfill methane emissions 46 percent by 2050 by making practical improvements to landfill management standards, according to new research by Full Circle Future.
In 2023, estimated emissions from New York’s municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills were equivalent to more than one million gas-powered cars. However, widespread and dramatic underreporting exacerbates this hidden crisis. Fewer than a third of New York’s landfills reported estimated emissions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2023. Aerial and satellite surveys have also identified a dozen large methane clouds over the state's landfills since 2021, indicating that alarming amounts of this potent greenhouse gas are hiding in plain sight.
“This is an enormous problem, but it’s also an incredibly solvable one,” said Katherine Blauvelt, Executive Director of Full Circle Future. “We have all the tools at our disposal to dramatically reduce methane emissions and protect New Yorkers from pollution that’s making them sick. We just need state regulators to act with the urgency this crisis requires.”
Full Circle Future’s research reveals the modeled impact of several best practices, including improved gas collection practices, stronger landfill cover, and the adoption of modern methane-detecting technologies — all highly achievable solutions, as evidenced by states like Oregon, Washington, and California.
While reducing methane is one of the most impactful and cost-effective ways to slow the impact of climate change, it also means providing cleaner air and water to the more than 6.7 million people who live within five miles of a landfill — roughly a third of the population of the entire state. Alongside methane, landfills spew contaminants like heavy metals, hydrogen sulfide, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that poison the air and water in nearby communities, worsening or leading to conditions like asthma, coronary heart disease, and cancer.
"The current regulations fail to reflect how landfills actually operate and don't adequately protect our communities from the environmental and health threats we face as hosts to other people's waste,” said Jackie Augustine, Executive Director of Blueprint Geneva. “When people throw things 'away,' they forget about it — but 'away' is right here in our neighborhoods. We're real people who needed real protection from regulators yesterday, and we can't wait any longer for action."
Young children and elderly adults, both groups who are especially susceptible to the health impacts of pollution, make up a disproportionate share of communities impacted by landfills. People with pre-existing health conditions are also more vulnerable to pollution and can face multiplied health impacts. 66 percent of New York’s MSW landfills are located near communities with cancer and melanoma rates above the state average. For example, the communities near Waterloo’s Seneca Meadows Landfill — the state’s largest active landfill, which is lobbying to expand operations — experience rates of cancer and chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (COPD) above the state average.
“This research shows a clear and consistent pattern of landfills across New York failing to accurately report the amount of methane they emit. It is unacceptable that communities like mine, who live in the shadow of the Seneca Meadows landfill, the state’s largest, continue to suffer from the effects of methane pollution,” said Yvonne Taylor, Vice President and Co-Founder of Seneca Lake Guardian. “New York urgently needs far stronger and more transparent reporting. But better monitoring alone won’t protect our health or our climate – we must finally close Seneca Meadows, stop the expansion of mega-landfills, and move away from our dependence on landfilling.”
The inequitable impacts of landfill pollution serve as a stark example of environmental racism in action. For more than 50 years, the predominantly Black and Latino community of North Bellport has lived in the shadow of the noxious Brookhaven with devastating health consequences. Members of the community — which experiences some of Long Island’s highest asthma rates and shortest life expectancies — are leading a push for the landfill’s closure and remediation for decades of pollution.
"We need our regulatory agency to protect our environment and people. Especially those most vulnerable due to multiple oppressive systems including the waste system,” said Monique Fitzgerald, co-founder of the Brookhaven Landfill Action and Remediation Group (BLARG). For many of our community members who prematurely lost their lives to cancer or who are suffering with cancer, asthma and other negative health issues updating the regulations are way past due. We must do this now and we must make these regulations strong enough to protect us, close down and clean up decades old landfills. Anything less will not be acceptable."
In 2023, the New York State Solid Waste Management Plan put forward several policy objectives to strengthen landfill regulations, including improved methane monitoring practices. However, DEC has yet to take meaningful steps to make good on its promise. “We can’t afford to continue kicking the can down the road,” concluded Blauvelt. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for our climate and for the safety and protection of communities. DEC needs to rise to the occasion by opening a rulemaking and raising the bar for New York’s landfill operators.”
