AirSENCE to Monitor VOC and GHGs at Landfill in British Columbia, Canada
Landfills generate significant amount of harmful air pollutants. Solid waste is the third leading source of atmospheric methane (right behind fossil fuel combustion and agriculture). This not only impacts workers situated at landfills, but also communities surrounding it. To address this concern, AirSENCE has been selected to be deployed at Alberni Valley Landfill (AVLF) to provide important measurements on Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), air quality parameters, and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).
Many government authorities have regulations that require regular landfill gas assessment, especially for landfills with a large amount of waste in place. For example, the BC Landfill Gas Management Regulation requires landfill gas assessments for landfills with greater than 100,000 tonnes of waste in place. AUG Signals’ AirSENCE has been selected by the Applied Environmental Research Laboratories at Vancouver Island University (VIU), partnering with Alberni Clayoquot Regional District (ACRD), to monitor the air quality around the AVLF site, together with VIU’s state of the art “mobile air quality monitoring unit.” This mobile lab can be used by environmental agents and legislators to measure landfill gas production and make evidence-based decisions to protect the safety and wellness of nearby communities.
Low-cost and portable AirSENCE units will be used around the Alberni Valley Landfill to measure the temporal and spatial distribution of a wide range of air quality parameters (including fine particulate matter, ground level O3, NOx, CO, SO2, CO2 and VOCs) as well as temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and ambient light. Many existing practices to measure landfill gas are costly and difficult to sustain, not to mention, it may only provide an estimate as opposed to direct measurements. This is where systems like AirSENCE can prove to be extremely valuable.
Data collected from this project will inform neighbouring communities of any existing health concerns and allow regulators to enforce restrictions or guidelines that can reduce these impacts.
