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fixings, sleepless, Fixing the

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word. Welcome.

1:35

To People Fixing the World From the

1:37

Bbc World Service I myra a new

1:39

be an every week I'm here to

1:41

tell you about great ideas that are

1:43

changing our world for the better. This

1:45

week we're talking about landfill and looking

1:48

at ways to do meaningful things with

1:50

a vast amount of waste we threw

1:52

away. I

2:01

don't know if you've ever seen or been

2:03

near a landfill before but I have and

2:05

well it's not a pretty sight. Picture

2:10

a mix of rotten food staffs,

2:13

old torn clothes, used plastic bags

2:15

and lots of other rubbish all

2:17

dumped in this one big massive

2:20

pile of waste with rats and

2:22

insects moving all around. Plus let's

2:24

not forget the stench from all

2:26

the nasty gases that are produced

2:28

when things start to decay. Dashes

2:30

that are really bad for the

2:32

environment. Now we have a big

2:34

waste problem because there are many

2:36

landfills across the world. In fact

2:39

according to the UN about 2

2:41

billion tons of rubbish ends up

2:43

in them every year. Sounds

2:46

dreadful right? Well not

2:49

always. Sometimes old landfill spaces

2:51

can be turned into something new like parks.

2:53

In fact I used to live in Kisunu

2:55

a city in the western part of Kenya

2:57

and there was this huge dump site right

3:00

in the middle of the city next to

3:02

one of the biggest malls there and

3:04

that has since been turned into a

3:06

lovely public garden where people can take

3:09

walks during the day. Now this

3:11

mainly happens to old landfill sites that are

3:14

no longer in use but

3:16

what if we could do the same thing for active

3:18

ones? Well turns out we

3:21

can and to find out how I'm

3:23

joined now down the line by our

3:25

reporter from the BBC Bureau in Singapore

3:27

Tessa Wong and as always it's great

3:29

to hear from you Tessa. Great to

3:31

hear from you Myra too. Now

3:33

Tessa turning old redundant landfill

3:35

sites into beautiful spaces it's not

3:37

a new idea. Yes they're often

3:40

close to urban areas with limited

3:42

green spaces so it makes sense

3:45

and in the US they've been doing this since

3:47

the 1970s I think some old landfill sites were

3:49

closed and then they were capped off to

3:52

secure the yucky stuff beneath the surface and

3:54

then they were turned into parks. I think

3:56

some of them were given cute names such

3:59

as Mount Trash more in Virginia. I

4:01

love the name. I mean, and that

4:03

brings us to our first solution today,

4:05

because Singapore has taken all of this

4:08

to a whole new level. They're doing

4:10

the same thing but with an active

4:12

landfill. That's right, Myra. So

4:14

Singapore is a very tiny city

4:16

state and when it was faced

4:18

with a shortage of space, the

4:20

government decided to offload all of

4:22

its rubbish to a purpose-built island.

4:25

And the base of that is made

4:28

from incinerated landfill waste and that's brought

4:30

over by boat from the mainland. And

4:33

the island is both an active landfill

4:35

site and a thriving ecosystem. Hold

4:37

on, Tessa. So the government built an

4:40

island from burnt landfill waste. I think

4:42

that's pretty cool. I mean, how do

4:44

they do this exactly? So

4:46

back in the 1990s, they connected

4:48

two tiny existing islands to create

4:51

a much bigger one. And they

4:53

did this by building a seven

4:55

kilometer long rocky embankment which enclosed

4:57

part of the sea. And the

5:00

technical term for that is a

5:02

bund. So then what

5:04

happened was that they laid plastic sheeting,

5:07

very, very strong plastic sheeting and then

5:09

a layer of marine clay onto

5:11

the ocean floor. And

5:14

then they split this

5:16

enclosed area into sections or what

5:18

they call cells. And every day,

5:20

these cells are filled with ash.

5:22

That's the remains of tons of

5:24

rubbish burnt on the mainland. So

5:27

once each section is filled up with ash, it's

5:29

then compacted and then a

5:32

layer of soil is put on top and that

5:34

allows plants and grass to grow. And

5:37

recently I went to take a look for my soul. Hi,

5:40

hello, how are you? So

5:47

I've just arrived on Semakau. It's

5:49

an almost entirely man-made island that

5:52

is also Singapore's only

5:54

landfill. And I'm going on a tour

5:56

now with Desmond Lee. We're on a bus actually. We're going around

5:58

the island. So Desmond, you're going to visit the island? is

6:00

in charge of operations here. On

6:03

my lab you can see the phase two of

6:05

the landfill which is actually 175 hectares. This is

6:07

part of the 350 hectares land here. It's

6:14

amazing it's really green like I can see you

6:16

know lots of plants and

6:19

lots of grass it doesn't look like a

6:21

landfill at all it's just covered in greenery

6:23

the bushes okay we're

6:25

driving over a gravel road

6:27

right now. What's

6:31

over there? Eagles. Okay

6:34

we've just seen some eagles it's incredible we're really

6:37

up close to them and they've just landed in

6:39

the tree just above us. And

6:42

how many eagles are there on the island? We

6:44

actually sponsored a family of eagles I think about

6:46

six to seven of them actually on living on

6:48

this island. What species are they? They

6:51

are the white-bellied eagles.

6:56

So I'm here at the landfill and

6:58

it doesn't look like one at all

7:01

it looks like a very large tranquil

7:03

beautiful lake because what they've done is

7:05

they've cordoned off part of the sea

7:08

and what I see in front of me is actually

7:10

the sea water that's been trapped in

7:12

this what they call a landfill cell. And

7:15

on the far end of this lake on

7:18

the other shore are a

7:20

few trucks and bulldozers they're dumping

7:22

ash and they're smoothening the ash

7:24

down and compacting it into the

7:26

ground and I've been told

7:28

that the water here will eventually evaporate

7:30

as this landfill cell got filled up.

7:34

Now most people would think of a landfill as

7:36

a pretty smelly place but there isn't much of

7:38

a smell at all because they're not dumping rubbish

7:40

they're dumping ash. So

7:43

Desmond in Singapore it rains a lot as you

7:45

know so you know when all

7:47

this rainwater collects in these

7:49

cells what happens? We

7:52

have a floating wastewater treatment plant that

7:54

treats the water inside this landfill cell

7:56

before it been discharged into the sea.

8:00

I know that in Singapore we don't get

8:02

earthquakes, we don't get tsunamis, but we do

8:04

get pretty powerful storms. So how do you

8:07

make sure this landfill doesn't get breached? As

8:10

you walk around the landfill, you notice

8:12

the markhouse is surrounded by nearby islands

8:14

and hence it's pretty sheltered from any

8:16

strong wave coming in. As

8:19

you can see, our parameter bond is

8:21

also designed to withstand strong sea wave.

8:24

The exposed outer parameter as you see here

8:26

is actually designed with two layers of armored

8:28

rock with a slope of 1 to 1.5.

8:31

This helps to break the wave comes into the

8:33

island. That's really interesting. So the

8:36

design of the gradient of this

8:39

bond, it's actually meant to break the force of

8:41

a wave. Yeah, this is correct because

8:43

this is very important because we are actually in the

8:45

middle of the sea. So what

8:48

about over the long term? Have you

8:50

commissioned any studies on how Surma Kao

8:52

impacts the environment? Not at

8:54

the moment, but we do have a

8:56

network of monitoring wells, as you can

8:58

see here, at every 150 meters along

9:00

the parameter bond. My team

9:03

collects water sample for testing on a

9:05

monthly basis and detect

9:07

any leakages or unusual activities.

9:10

To this day, we have never detected any sign

9:12

of leakages. You can see

9:14

those grows of vine growth trees over there.

9:16

They serve as a bio-indicators. If

9:18

there's any pollution or leakages, they will

9:20

not be striving today. So

9:23

we're actually standing by a mangrove

9:26

forest now. There's loads of mangrove

9:28

trees. They're right by

9:30

the sea because that's how mangrove trees

9:33

thrive. They thrive on salt water and

9:35

there's lots of birds flying about, insects

9:37

as well. I even see a white

9:40

heron just hiding underneath one of the

9:42

mangrove trees. It's

9:44

quite remarkable how this island is

9:46

hosting such a diverse range of

9:48

animals and plants. How

9:50

has this landfill project benefited nature?

9:54

We have replanted thousands of mangrove

9:56

trees, encouraging biodiversity and also keep

9:58

the water clean. clean. We

10:01

now have a flourishing ecosystem with

10:04

nearly many different species of plants,

10:06

fish, insects and marine life. I'm

10:16

in a building called the Weets-Tacna Building

10:19

and it's where all the barges carrying

10:21

the incineration ash from mainland Singapore

10:23

come to Sumakau Island. They dock

10:26

here and a very large

10:28

excavator scoops up the ash and puts

10:30

it into a truck that's just waiting

10:32

by the side and after that the

10:34

truck drives off to a landfill

10:36

cell and dumps that ash into the film.

10:40

What about the incineration? Doesn't that part of the

10:42

process pollute the air as well? Our

10:44

ways to energy plant dust have system to

10:46

treat the fuel gas before

10:48

it's been discharged properly. This

10:51

includes the catalytic back filters

10:53

and electrostatic system to remove

10:55

dust and pollutants. The

10:57

heat generated from the incineration process is

10:59

also used to produce electricity. I'm

11:05

on the boat going back to mainland Singapore now

11:08

and the island looks beautiful in the

11:10

afternoon light. It's

11:12

easy to forget that it's just a mound of

11:14

burnt rubbish. Tessa,

11:18

I mean all of this sounds really great.

11:20

I'm interested to know, were there any people

11:22

visiting the place while you were there? No,

11:25

you actually have to get a

11:27

permit to visit the place and you can't

11:29

stay overnight. And Tessa, how big is the

11:31

island and how much more waste can it

11:34

really take? Yeah, it's not big.

11:36

It's actually just three and a half square

11:38

kilometers and they estimate that it would be

11:40

full by 2035 if we

11:43

go by the current rate of waste produced. So

11:46

what's Singapore's next waste plan?

11:48

Singapore's launched what it calls

11:50

a zero waste master plan

11:53

and the aim is to reduce the waste that

11:55

we're producing by 30% by 2030. That

12:00

would also help expand Simakau's lifespan

12:02

beyond the predicted date of 2035.

12:05

That's the date that they predict it's going to be

12:07

full. But at the

12:09

same time, they're also looking at projects

12:11

which find other uses for the ash

12:14

that's been produced by the incinerated rubbish.

12:16

So for example, it could be used to

12:18

make roads or to reclaim

12:20

more land from the sea. So actually,

12:22

parts of mainland Singapore could one day

12:24

be built from rubbish. Interesting.

12:27

So we're turning trash into treasure, and in

12:29

this case, a treasure island. Thank you for

12:31

what we've heard today, Tessa. You're very welcome.

12:33

Thanks, Myra. You're

12:38

listening to People Fixing the World from

12:40

the BBC World Service, and today we're

12:43

talking about clever ways that we can

12:45

use active landfill sites. Now

12:47

we just heard about how Singapore has

12:49

managed to transform the only landfill they

12:51

use that's out in the ocean into

12:53

a beautiful island. However, when it comes

12:55

to landfill, it's not just about the

12:57

way they look. Another

12:59

issue are the gases that are produced

13:01

by all the stuff that's decaying in

13:03

these rubbish dumps. Gases which

13:06

are dangerous for the environment and

13:08

contribute to climate change. Our

13:10

next solution, though, is a project that's found a

13:12

smart way to deal with this problem. And

13:15

to find out how, I'm joined now by

13:17

our reporter, Claire Bowes. Claire, it's great to

13:19

see you. Hi, Myra. Claire,

13:21

one of the big bad gases

13:23

produced in landfill is methane. And

13:26

it's dangerous because it's highly flammable,

13:28

but also because it's bad for

13:30

the environment. Yeah, bad. It's terrible.

13:32

Methane does warm the planet, and

13:34

some argue it's worse than carbon

13:37

dioxide, because although it doesn't hang

13:39

around heating the planet for as long,

13:42

methane has more than 80 times the

13:44

heating power of carbon dioxide over its lifetime

13:46

of 20 years. Right. And

13:49

that's why we're so close to our solution

13:51

today, because it's found a way of using

13:53

methane from landfill to create biomethane, which is

13:55

a renewable energy source. Exactly

13:57

right. And

14:02

this particular solution comes from a

14:04

French company called WAGA Energy, and

14:06

that stands for Wasted Gas Energy,

14:08

and it's what they're trying to

14:10

avoid. So

14:12

it's smart because it helps in two ways. Firstly,

14:15

by collecting methane from landfill, which

14:17

would otherwise either have floated off

14:20

to warm the planet or

14:22

been burnt, the term they use is

14:24

flared, to get rid of it. Secondly,

14:28

the bio-methane, the clean methane, is

14:30

pumped directly into the gas grid

14:32

system to provide householders with energy.

14:35

Right, Claire, and this is something we've

14:38

looked at on the programme before, Ways

14:40

of Turning Waste into Power. So

14:43

what makes this project different? I

14:46

think it really is the fact

14:48

that it gets pumped into the

14:50

natural gas grid. And

14:52

I think it's worth reminding people, these

14:54

are gases which are created naturally, wherever

14:56

you find food or animal waste in

14:58

an enclosed space without oxygen, and that's

15:01

why landfill sites offer such rich

15:03

pickings. So I

15:05

spoke to Mathieu Lefebvre, and he's the

15:07

chief executive who came up with a

15:09

new system for capturing the methane,

15:11

and he called it the WAGA box. And

15:14

I also learnt a new word. It's

15:16

the French for outraged or

15:19

indignant. Yeah, I don't

15:21

know what is the name. Perhaps you can help me

15:23

a little bit. But

15:26

for me, the emotion is

15:28

really to be indignant. You

15:32

get angry and frustrated.

15:35

Exactly. It's just not

15:37

acceptable. You know, it's

15:40

unbearable to have these

15:43

gas just wasted when we

15:45

are importing gas from Russia,

15:47

from Algeria, from Norway, extracting

15:49

gas from the ground. Just

15:53

nearby, you have a gas that is

15:56

flared, and we have a

15:58

solution now for that. So, yeah,

16:01

just let's do it. It's

16:03

profitable, thanks to the Wegerbox.

16:07

So, this Wegerbox, you cite

16:09

that next to a landfill.

16:12

And then what happens? How is it

16:14

all connected? And how does it feed

16:16

into the National Gas

16:18

Grid Network? So,

16:21

a landfill is a very large site. There

16:24

is pipes that are drilled to

16:26

the west and connected through

16:28

a pipeline network to a

16:30

central point where usually

16:33

the gas is flared. So,

16:36

we substitute the flare with

16:39

the Wegerbox. So, the Wegerbox is

16:41

really the missing link between the

16:43

west industry, landfills, and

16:45

the energy industry, the gas grid,

16:47

and the utilities. What's the

16:49

business model then? What's the relationship

16:52

with the landfill site and the

16:54

national grid? So, we market and

16:56

we sell the gas to a utility

16:58

and we share a percentage of the

17:00

turnover with the landfill manager. It's

17:03

a win-win approach because it

17:06

means that this pollution now has

17:08

a value. And

17:11

we really want to incentivize the

17:13

landfill manager to capture as much

17:16

gas as possible because doing so,

17:18

we will avoid methane emissions. So,

17:24

that's the business model. And

17:26

how does it actually work? The

17:29

Wegerbox is set up on a site

17:31

equivalent to the size of a basketball

17:33

court. And that's always pitched up close

17:35

to the landfill. But looking

17:38

at the Wegerbox and the silver shiny

17:40

pipes and cylinders and containers, it's

17:43

really hard to work out exactly

17:45

what's going on. So,

17:47

I was lucky enough to speak to

17:49

Will Llewellyn of Weger Energy to talk

17:52

me through some of the key stages

17:54

of gas purification. So,

17:57

Weger Energy process enables...

18:00

to use a very small amount

18:02

of energy to separate three

18:04

gases which are very similar in molecular

18:07

size. Now on

18:09

other technologies you can indeed recover

18:12

methane from landfill gas but

18:14

if you want to optimize the extraction

18:16

of the landfill gas from the landfill

18:18

site you have to suck

18:20

it out of the landfill. The harder

18:23

you suck the gas out the

18:25

more likely you are to suck in a bit

18:27

of air with that gas

18:29

and as we all know most of

18:31

the component gas in air is nitrogen

18:34

so you need to be able to get

18:36

rid of that nitrogen in order to be able

18:38

to get that nice methane that you've actually wanted

18:40

to suck out. Because Wagah Energy

18:42

manages the nitrogen in a different

18:45

way we can recover 90-95% of

18:48

the energy in that landfill gas so what

18:50

we're looking at here is process

18:52

efficiency. And

18:55

there's a handy little video online that

18:57

you can actually watch and this shows

19:00

an engineer on site holding a handset

19:02

let's call it a gasometer at

19:05

the risk of annoying people and

19:07

this shows the purification process stage

19:09

by stage at each different spot

19:11

it shows the numbers for CH4

19:13

that's methane going

19:15

up. So

19:18

the first stage of separation is when

19:20

the gas is pushed through membranes or

19:23

filters and then it's

19:26

put through a freezing process to

19:28

further separate out the methane. Here's

19:30

Will Llewellyn again explaining to

19:33

me from the site itself. We're

19:36

going to go to what's called the cold box which

19:38

is where Wagah Energy has developed a

19:41

very robust cryogenic distillation

19:44

stage for their process.

19:47

Before we carry on for those of

19:49

us who've got grade C in science

19:52

cryogenic distillation essentially

19:54

means cryogenic

19:57

distillation is distilling

19:59

on the very cold conditions. So

20:02

as you know, gases

20:04

need to be cooled down below

20:07

zero in order to liquefy them. And

20:10

then when one gas liquefies, you

20:13

can separate it from other gases which may remain in

20:15

the gas state. And

20:21

so the next phase of our process we're going to go to

20:24

is the grid compressor phase. So

20:27

what stage have we reached now? Are

20:29

we close to the goal? Yes.

20:32

So at this point here we have

20:35

grid compliant biomissane which

20:37

has been produced from the landfill gas, which

20:39

has been compressed to match the

20:41

operating pressure of the gas network. And

20:44

from here we send this biomissane to

20:46

the grid injection

20:48

unit, which is at the

20:50

point that our biomissane has its

20:53

quality scrutinized by the gas network

20:55

operator. It has an

20:57

odorant added to give it the characteristic gas

20:59

smell because biomissane when it's blown is odorless.

21:03

And then it is injected into the gas. So

21:05

we've seen the gas head off a couple

21:08

of kilometers down some pipe work and it's

21:10

going to the national grid. And what

21:14

happens there? Somebody is about to

21:16

cook their lunch with it, right? Yeah,

21:19

that's right. So the advantage of injecting into the

21:22

gas grid is that that biomissane

21:24

can then go to any

21:26

number of consumers of natural gas. And

21:29

you can use that to heat your house or

21:31

you could use that to power your truck in

21:33

the place of fossil diesel. So by injecting into

21:35

the gas network, you can allow

21:37

a much greater number

21:39

of people to access the green

21:41

advantages of your biomissane. So

21:44

Claire, how big an industry

21:46

is biomissane currently? Well,

21:50

it's pretty teeny tiny, unfortunately. The

21:53

International Energy Agency or

21:55

IEA, which is an

21:57

intergovernmental organization analyzing the

21:59

energy. sector says biomesane

22:01

globally represents about 0.1% of

22:04

natural gas demand. But

22:08

Claire, we have loads of landfill sites out

22:10

there, so this is just really a drop

22:13

in the ocean of what we need to do to reduce

22:15

methane emissions. Yes, to

22:17

reduce those methane emissions from landfill sites,

22:19

unfortunately, there's a long way to go.

22:22

But the IEA says a number

22:24

of governments, mainly in Europe, are

22:27

introducing policies to support this

22:29

gas collection and injection into

22:32

natural gas grids, as well

22:34

as to use it to

22:36

decarbonise transport. And

22:38

when we talk about climate change action,

22:40

right, there's a race against time here.

22:42

So how much headway

22:45

is this really making in the

22:47

bigger scheme, really? Yes, I mean,

22:49

if we're talking about reducing methane

22:51

in its entirety, well, there's a

22:53

long way to go. OK.

22:56

The UN says cutting methane emissions by 45%

22:58

by 2030 could help us meet the Paris

23:00

Agreement's goal

23:05

of limiting global warming to 1.5

23:07

degrees. Now

23:10

more methane is produced from agriculture

23:12

and energy than from waste. So

23:14

biomesane from waste plays a really

23:17

small part. But remember, the

23:19

dual role of this particular project

23:21

is to both eliminate methane from

23:23

being released into the atmosphere, which

23:25

happens in a lot of places,

23:28

and it also helps produce clean energy.

23:30

So it has it's a

23:32

two pronged approach. Right. Well, hopefully there are

23:34

more ideas and projects bubbling

23:37

around that are trying to solve this problem. But

23:39

thank you for what we've had today, Claire. Thank

23:41

you. So

23:46

turning an active dump site in

23:48

Singapore into an island and capturing

23:50

that bad methane gas from a

23:52

landfill in France to power people's

23:54

homes. Now, these are just two

23:56

examples of what we could do

23:58

with landfill sites. But let

24:00

me know what you think about what you've heard,

24:02

or if you've come across any other

24:04

ideas trying to make a

24:07

difference. All you need to

24:09

do is send us an email

24:11

to people6intheworld at bbc.co.uk And

24:14

as always, I'll be back next week with

24:17

more great ideas. Until then,

24:19

thanks for listening. Some

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