A community-based landfill gas project in Brazil piloted in 2009 by the Appalachian Energy Center at Appalachian State University will soon become reality.

The Green Methane Committee in Fortaleza/Maracanaú, Brazil, which the Appalachian Energy Center helped form and train, will receive approximately $750,000 from the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment – National Fund on Climate Change to construct a system to collect and utilize methane gas from the Maracanaú Landfill. The Appalachian Energy Center also helped plan this landfill gas collection and utilization system.

The gas will be used at an Energy Park that will be constructed adjacent to the landfill where catadores (Brazilian waste pickers) will gather plastic and glass recyclables from the waste stream before they end up in the landfill. The ability to capture recyclables at the source, instead of digging through garbage at the landfill, will increase profits and help the catadores improve their living and working conditions.

The Appalachian Energy Center staff is well known for its work with community-based landfill gas utilization projects in North Carolina and across the U.S. This is its first international project.