South Africa's waste powers homes

2011-11-24 20

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Household waste from South Africa's third largest city, Durban, being dumped in a landfill.
Everything that ends up here has no use to those who disposed of it.
But a landmark project has found a way to turn the unwanted waste into something valuable - energy.
The 'Gas to Electricity' project extracts landfill gas from dumpsites - which is 40 to 60 percent methane - and converts it into electricity.
Not only does this help power local homes, the process provides jobs and makes the landfill itself less smelly.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) SITE ENGINEER, JOHN PARKIN:
"The benefits to them is that it's taking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Also it takes out the odours of the landfill site at the same time. So the landfill site is less odorous than it was."
The landful produces enough electricity to power almost 4000 homes.
Simon Hanna, Reuters.