Soon Kropyvnytsky will become one of the six cities in Ukraine, where they process landfill gas into electricity. Need as air

Preparations for the degassing project began three years ago, and now the process of arranging this system continues, said Tatiana Martovitskaya, deputy director of Ecostyle LLC, during a press conference.

The implementation of such a project is really necessary. Because the volumes of garbage for the regional center are huge. About 100 thousand tons of garbage per year are exported to the landfill, which has been operating since 1953; today, more than 4,500 tons of waste has already accumulated. As a result of the anaerobic decomposition of organic substances, biogas is formed, comprising between 30% and 50% of methane.

Methane is dangerous because it harms the environment 25 times more than CO2, carbon dioxide. In other words, this connection is car emissions.

Methane emissions into the air destroy the ozone layer. Methane is so harmful that, even closing the landfill, seven more years are needed to remove this gas and completely clean the site. “And if methane accumulates in the“ body ”of the landfill, it also carries a technological hazard. Landfill gas is a source of fires, which result in chlorine-containing plastics and highly toxic compounds are generated. Carbon monoxide released into the air as a result of fires is even more dangerous for people, animals and plants “, – said Tatyana Martovitskaya.

Decontamination is carried out to prevent the release of methane into the atmosphere and fires at the landfill. Thus, it will be possible to avoid the potential risk of a soil shift, as happened at a landfill in the Lviv region. In general, the requirements for decontamination are in Ukrainian legislation. Therefore, in 2015, the company began work with the Gas Institute, which helped develop the first five wells processing harmful gas. Using this small project, we studied technology, how to store methane in a landfill so that it is safe, and how to make landfill seals to prevent fires. During this time, workers and residents of Zavadovka and Kuschevka areas saw that “small” degassing really works.

Then kropivnichane began to look for a company that fully implement the project of a larger scale. Here they planned to attract a company that has experience in Ukraine for more than five years. In the process of searching, they conducted a series of negotiations, paying attention also to business reputation, the use of new type equipment. Thus, for these works, LLC LNK was chosen, which has the greatest experience in the degassing of landfills in Ukraine. In their dossier there are six successfully implemented projects in various regions of Ukraine.

As a result, they found support in the NERC and the city council. The company has been allocated a site for all communications for the complete processing and collection of methane. In addition, the company invests 1.5 million euros. Preparation work began in September.

Decontamination will bring an opportunity to improve the environmental situation – this is air purification from 4.5 million cubic meters of landfill gas. “In the equivalent, we reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 21 thousand tons per year. This can be compared with emissions of 50 thousand cars per year,” says Martovitskaya and adds that generation will be carried out – this is the conversion of methane into electricity. At the same time, they will save 2 million cubic meters of natural gas. Not to mention the safety of fires.

“Already drilled and equipped 32 wells, dug trenches and laid two km of pipeline gas pipelines. Two more km of pipes were delivered. Plans are to finish drilling 16 more wells. The site has a completely complex vertical relief. Now, trenches are being dug up, pipes are being laid, settling roads to the site.
Installation and commissioning of the generator set should take no more than 20 days after the equipment is delivered. We are planning to complete these works by the end of the first quarter of 2019, “said Tatyana Martovitskaya.

With regard to the generation of electricity from the “garbage” gas, the company LNK has handed over all the necessary documents to connect to the network of Kropyvnytskyi, and is now waiting for technical conditions. Then this electricity will be sold at a “green” tariff.

At one time, the technical director of the company LNK, Vladimir Bannov, said that the pre-power plant, which will process biogas from landfill into electricity, is set at 600 kW. For the year, this will allow to generate up to 4.8 million kW / h. electricity, which will go to the energy network of the city. There are about 6.5 thousand landfills in Ukraine, and only six of them process landfill gas into electricity.

The company orders the equipment from abroad, and it will be delivered to Kropyvnytskyi already in the first days of January.

We can do without a waste recycling plant

Regarding the waste recycling plant plans yet. Recently, the mayor Andrei Rajkovic said that the construction of a waste recycling plant should not begin precisely in Kropivnitsky. Tatiana Martovitskaya deciphered this message as follows: the existing volumes of garbage in the regional center cannot fill all the capacities of the garbage processing plant. If he does not work in full, he will have to either subsidize from the city budget, or it will fall on the shoulders of residents in the tariff. Especially if the plant is near Kropivnitsky – because of the distance for transportation, the tariff will also increase.

According to Martovitskaya, the Energia plant in Kiev was unprofitable for a very long time and received subsidies from the city budget. Thermal energy was produced there, which was barely enough to heat nearby homes. And for a long time they could not even go “at zero.”

But even with all modern technologies, it is still impossible to turn garbage into the air. The plant will also have remnants of production. In the process of the hypothetical processing plant, the landfill will still be needed, because there is waste that the plant does not accept. This is construction waste. He goes to the arrangement of roads, so that the cars could pass on the “body” of the landfill itself.

In general, gradually plan to reduce the dumping of waste in the city dump. And it succeeds. In 2015, it was believed that the “old” landfill could survive for only three years. And then it will be necessary to allocate land to build a new landfill according to modern standards, but they have developed a technology for burial and attracted waste compacting equipment.

And this achieved an increase in the sanitary zone on the side of Kuschevka and Zavadovka, therefore, now at the landfill they don’t even need additional land, “upward” thanks to the sorting of waste it also does not grow. “When we introduce sorting, we reduce the load on the dump,” says Tatyana Martovitskaya.

But in the city they are just learning to sort solid household waste – this year containers were placed in Kropyvnytskyi for separate collection of garbage. But for the first three months, the scavengers took out everything from there, although there are stickers about the waste that needs to be thrown there.

For 2018, they collected 600 kg of recyclable materials, but 30 percent is another rubbish. In three schools of Kropyvnytsky, they also embody a project, during which children are taught to sort garbage, and schoolchildren repeat the same thing at home.

The company plans to find investors for the implementation of other projects. And in a few years it will be possible to talk about a landfill that does not pose a threat. The first results of this work will be seen before April 2019.