Fire at Pirana dump on in Ahmedabad on Thursday.15,december,2016 Photo Yogesh Chawda
Ahmedabad : Every day, around 4,000 metric tonnes of Ahmedabad’s garbage reaches Pirana, the 22-metre-high mountain of waste that has been growing on the city’s south-western edge since the 1980s. Pirana releases an average of 38,000 metric tonnes of methane every year, with emissions rising to 42,000 tonnes in 2024, according to a new study. Methane is around 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Pirana’s emissions in 2024 were equivalent to the peak emission rate recorded at Lee County Landfill in the US, the highest-emitting US site in comparable research. The national atmospheric impact is also measurable: “There is an increase in atmospheric methane over India from 2019 to 2024, reaching nearly 1,980 ppb, corresponding to an overall increase of about 60 ppb.
Because the study states, “The absence of an effective landfill gas collection system results in a large fraction of the generated methane being released directly into the atmosphere, the findings are significant for Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad’s food-heavy municipal waste stream therefore provides abundant material for methane-producing bacteria.
“The Indian dumpsites receive a larger amount of organic waste compared to landfills in the US or China, which also contributes to greater methane emissions,” the study states. what escapes from it is not — but satellites operated by European and Japanese space agencies have now measured Pirana’s methane emissions with unprecedented precision While the garbage remains visible. The study found that Pirana had the lowest year-on-year variability among all Indian landfills measured, indicating a persistent and stable discharge rather than a temporary spike. NASA’s EMIT instrument independently cross-verified the findings. The study, led by researchers at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi — Shalini Yadav, Sajeev Philip, Ravi Kumar Kunchala and Subhadeep Ghosh — was published in Environmental Research Communications. It provides multi-year, satellite-derived measurements of annual methane emissions from Indian landfills. Methane is generated when organic waste decomposes without oxygen beneath compressed layers of garbage. Waste composition further adds to the problem. You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Ahmedabad | Silver Rate in Ahmedabad | Bank Holidays in Ahmedabad | Public Holidays in Ahmedabad | Ahmedabad AQI | Weather in Ahmedabad | Petrol Price in Ahmedabad | Diesel Price in Ahmedabad | CNG Price in Ahmedabad | LPG Price in Ahmedabad
