From Landfill to RNG: NEW RIVER REGIONAL LANDFILL TURNS TRASH INTO NATURAL GAS BY THOMAS EHLERS Staff Writer
The New River Regional Landfill consists of an active 99-acre lined Class I Landfill and supporting infrastructure. Photo source: NRSWA
We’re taking something that would normally just be of no use to anyone or a problem and we’re converting it into RNG, which can be used for any number of things...
If you scour Florida’s nearly 66,000 square miles, you won’t find anything like the New River Regional Landfill facility. That’s because it's the first and only landfill gas to renewable natural gas (RNG) facility in the Sunshine State. The facility opened on Jan. 5 in Raiford, and it converts methane from the New River Solid Waste Association’s (NRSWA) municipal solid waste landfill into RNG, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 35,000 tons per year. The facility will be able to extract 2,500 standard cubic feet per minute of landfill gas and produce 5.1 million gas gallon equivalents per year at full capacity. This groundbreaking facility hopes to lessen the effect of fossil fuels by reducing the impact of local emissions while providing an alternative fuel source for the automobile and trucking industries, both contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. It serves as the first facility to interconnect to the Florida Gas Transmission’s pipeline with landfill gas, which speaks to the facility’s highquality output as the pipeline requires strict pipeline-gas specifications.
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“We’re taking something that would normally just be of no use to anyone or a problem and we’re converting it into RNG, which can be used for any number of things,” said NRSWA Assistant Director Joel Woolsey. “Anything natural gas can be used for, RNG can be used for, and in particular our project, that RNG is being directed to fuel heavy, Class A vehicles.” A DIFFERENT WAY TO BURN RNG, also known as biomethane, is a pipeline-quality biogas that has been processed to remove impurities like water, carbon dioxide and other elements. The New River Regional Landfill facility takes methane gas from landfills, but methane can be refined from other means, including wastewater treatment, livestock operations, lignocellulosic material and other industrial or commercial sources to produce RNG. Across the country, 82 different landfill projects produced RNG in 2022, according to statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), while 109 agricultural projects produced biofuel. The first of its kind in Florida, the New River facility uses activated carbon to remove hydrogen sulfide, harnessing membrane technology in vessels to separate the
