Landfills capture methane gas and convert it into usable energy

Modern landfills use layered liners, leachate systems, and gas monitors to safely contain waste

Today, landfill engineering is far more complex than a hole in the ground, which was largely the system cities used less than a century ago. This video explains how it actually works.

Methane leaks during natural gas processing reduce the gas's overall cleanliness

Natural gas is advertised as a cleaner fossil fuel because it emits 50% less carbon dioxide than oil and coal when burned. Supporting analysis only considers end-use combustion and excludes total emissions generated by extraction, shipping, and processing.

The North American waste management market was worth $208B in 2019

Burning waste to generate energy is a $10B industry in the US alone. A growing number of major companies—including Amazon, Subaru, and American Airlines—are pursuing "zero landfill" sustainability goals.

Greenhouse gas removal consists of a series of techniques to capture and store GHGs

These include turning biomass into charcoal for storage in soil before it decays and releases carbon dioxide, crushing CO₂-absorbing rocks—increasing exposed surface area—and spreading them across land to accelerate GHG uptake, and restoring degraded peatlands, which can store twice the amount of carbon as the average forest.

Across a 20-year period, methane has more than 80 times the warming potential of CO₂

However, this greenhouse gas lasts only about 12 years in the atmosphere, much less than the centuries or more that carbon dioxide can persist. Methane is produced primarily during the production, storage, and transmission of coal, natural gas, and oil, as well as from the digestive processes of domestic livestock.

Feeding grazing cattle seaweed cut their methane emissions by almost 40%

The largest share of the 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions from livestock comes from methane released when cows burp. A study found that introducing a seaweed supplement in pellet form significantly reduced these emissions without affecting cattle's health or weight.

Fracking technology can help make geothermal power possible almost everywhere

Generating electricity from Earth's thermal energy has previously required existing underground reservoirs of hot water and permeable rocks through which the fluid naturally escapes. Today, fractures can be artificially created to form fluid pathways, and surface water can be injected underground and brought back to the surface.

What happens if you throw trash into lava?

Each year, the world generates more than 2 billion tons of waste. Some have wondered: Could we dispose of it in lava? This video explores the science behind that idea, from lava lake temperatures to steam explosions and toxic emissions, and why the risks outweigh the benefits.

Methane: the other greenhouse gas

While most of the focus with respect to greenhouse gases lands on carbon dioxide, methane is the second most potent contributor. The gas, a carbon atom with four hydrogen atoms, is 25 times more potent than CO2 in terms of trapping heat over a 100...

Geothermal power can generate electricity and provide direct heating for homes

By drilling several kilometers through penetrable rock, wells can access highly pressurized groundwater warmed by thermal energy trapped beneath Earth's surface. This water can be turned into steam to create electricity in generators. Heating systems several meters deep can pump fluid underground before circulating it through buildings.

Turning trash into music

In a town built on a landfill, a music teacher and young musicians created an orchestra using instruments made entirely from trash. From oil cans to bottle caps, they turned waste into music.

Trace your trash bag's journey from the curb to the landfill

A single garbage truck can hold 10 to 12 tons of waste per load. After curbside pickup, trash is transported to a transfer station before its final trip to a landfill.

Explore options for recycling batteries

Improper battery disposal can lead to fires and the leaching of harmful chemicals and toxic materials into local soil and water systems. Although many batteries contain metals that can be recycled with less energy than it takes to produce them, variability in regulations across municipalities and states can complicate efforts. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

The fracking industry has created hundreds of thousands of jobs since 1949

The method of extracting fossil fuels from shale rock formations has saved Americans an estimated $23B annually in energy costs. Every year, fracking generates billions of gallons of wastewater and causes methane—a greenhouse gas that is over 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide—to leak into the atmosphere.

New York City spends $429 million a year just to get rid of its trash

None of NYC's garbage is processed within the city. It is transported by truck, train, and barge to waste-to-energy facilities and landfills as far away as Ohio and South Carolina, a vast logistical operation.

Americans throw away nearly 40% of their food supply

The US discards roughly 63 million tons of food per year, making it one of the largest contributors to landfill waste. Food scrap waste is the single largest category of material sent to landfills.

Carbon sinks absorb more greenhouse gases than they produce

The largest on Earth are oceans, which capture 25% of all carbon emissions and 90% of excess atmospheric thermal radiation while generating half of the world's oxygen. Wildfires and deforestation have reduced forests' net sink capacity, though fungi are believed to capture and store over a third of global carbon emissions.

Carbon dioxide is the most produced greenhouse gas from human activities

In 2022, about 79.7% of US greenhouse gas emissions were carbon dioxide, produced through chemical reactions in processes such as cement production and the burning of fossil fuels, solid waste, trees, and other biological materials. Methane (11.1%), nitrous oxide (6.1%), fluorinated gases (3.1%), and trace amounts of solid and liquid aerosol were also created.

'Human composting' is an eco-friendly burial method legal in only a few states

Formally known as natural human organ reduction, this process relies on the same principles as standard composting and breaks down the body over many weeks, turning it into a type of soil. It's currently only legal in a handful of states.

Geothermal power plants can provide large-scale energy storage for other systems

These facilities can store excess energy from solar and wind power as hot water or steam, which can be used to run turbines to generate electricity when other renewable energy sources are unavailable. Simulations have found efficiencies of 90% during a storage-use cycle, making it comparable to lithium-ion batteries.

Could we throw trash inside volcanoes?

Americans toss out about 239 million tons of garbage each year. Some have wondered whether we could toss some (or all) of it into volcanoes, where it could be destroyed. There are about 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth, and many are pretty remote, making logistics complex. This video investigates whether the idea checks out.

Some faucets in regions near fracking wells run flammable water

A 2011 study found methane contamination as much as 3,000 feet away from wells, although there was no evidence of fracking chemicals in tested wells. Water with low methane concentrations is not harmful to drink, but it becomes flammable when mixed with air.

Arctic permafrost may store twice as much carbon as the entire atmosphere

Rising greenhouse gas concentrations are expected to continue to increase average global temperatures and threaten to thaw ground that has been frozen for thousands of years. The release of greenhouse gases from remnant organic matter would exacerbate the greenhouse effect, creating a positive feedback loop.

Sand 'batteries' can store excess electricity from the power grid as thermal energy

Energy collected from solar or wind power is used to heat insulated silos full of sand to temperatures as high as 450 degrees Celsius (842 degrees Fahrenheit), which can be retained for long periods. These thermal energy storage systems can be designed to boil water and generate electricity when needed.

Hydrogen fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity and water, can be run in reverse to produce hydrogen fuel from water.

Permafrost—soil, rocks, and sand that are held together by ice and remain frozen for at least two consecutive years—covers about 15% of the Northern Hemisphere's land area.

Fracking provides access to fossil fuel reserves locked in underground rock

Using a pressurized fluid mixture that is over 90% water, cracks are created in shale about 2 miles deep to release trapped oil and natural gas. The process uses an average of 3 to 6 million gallons of water per well, which can strain local water supplies.

Yearly greenhouse gas emissions have been steadily increasing since 1850

Although greenhouse gases include methane, nitrous oxide, and most fluorinated compounds, their warming potential is often measured relative to carbon dioxide. In these units, greenhouse gas emissions have gone from 4.29 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 1850 to 54.43 billion metric tons in 2024.

There's a fast fashion graveyard in Chile's Atacama Desert full of used clothing from the US, Europe, and Asia.

America generates more trash per person than any other country on Earth

The US produces roughly 292 million tons of municipal solid waste per year, about 4.9 pounds per person per day. Municipal solid waste includes food scraps, packaging, electronics, yard trimmings, and more. About 50% of the waste ends up in a landfill.

Most biodegradable plastics don’t break down in everyday conditions

Despite their eco-friendly name, biodegradable plastics often require industrial composting, which most areas lack, to decompose the uncommon compounds found in them. This means they may linger in landfills or contaminate conventional plastics in recycling bins.

Fiberglass and epoxy resin on blades complicate the recycling of wind turbines

Between 85 and 95% of a turbine's materials—except for the blades—can be recycled. Blades have been left in landfills when not repurposed into playgrounds and sheds, but new processes may allow them to be made into pellets for injection plastics and concrete.

The continuous decay of radioactive elements regenerates geothermal energy reserves

Geothermal power is a renewable energy source derived from Earth's interior, where the core reaches temperatures exceeding 5,000 degrees Celsius (9,000 degrees Fahrenheit). These temperatures result from leftover energy from collisions during planetary formation, with radioactive decay in the core releasing additional energy that travels to the surface.

The food industry's hard-to-solve pollution

One-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions result from food and agriculture. That whopping number includes production and post-farm processes like distribution. See a visualization of the data along with a breakdown explaining how each process contributes to emissions, and why it’s so difficult to improve the agriculture industry.

Why bacterial bioremediation may help counter the negative effects of past chemical solutions

Molecules such as DDT, a synthetic insecticide, and PFAS—"forever" chemicals used to make products resistant to heat, water, and grease—have historically been used across various industries but are now known to be harmful. Microbes that can convert some of these substances into nontoxic products, such as water and carbon dioxide, have already been identified, with ongoing research to find others.

Comparing bioremediation with other treatment techniques, at three levels of complexity

Physical manipulation, such as collecting and moving contaminated material to a landfill, or chemical applications, which use strong, expensive substances and produce harmful byproducts, can be costly. While bioremediation leverages naturally occurring degradation processes that can be augmented without disrupting impacted ecosystems, these processes may be less effective in environments that bioremediation organisms are not adapted to.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Why is there an archaeologist in my trash can?

Archaeologists have always been interested in rubbish—sites such as waste heaps, middens, and latrines can be some of the richest places to learn about the human past. But the type of rubbish we're leaving behind is changing, and much of it now...

Early Earth lifeforms likely made energy via mineral reactions, not sunlight

Earth's initial atmosphere was filled with carbon dioxide, methane, and water, with most oxygen locked away in the rocky crust. Over time, bacteria evolved to slowly release that oxygen into the atmosphere by breaking down rock.

Soil is the largest terrestrial carbon sink on the planet, storing almost twice as much carbon as the atmosphere and all living plants and animals combined.

Bioluminescence may provide a sustainable alternative to electric lighting

French start-up Glowee is experimenting with lights made from bioluminescent microorganisms in public spaces to reduce energy use. While the technology shows promise, challenges remain with brightness, maintenance, and scaling it for widespread use.

The US produces far more waste and recycles far less of it than other developed countries

The US represents just 4% of the world’s population, but it produces 12% of global municipal solid waste. In comparison, China and India make up more than 36% of the world’s population and generate 27% of that waste.

Wastewater from geothermal power plants helps melt sidewalk snow in Iceland

Located on the Mid-Atlantic ridge, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates move apart, the nation saw geothermal power meet more than 90% of its heating demand in 2024. After the hot water produced by these plants is used to heat homes and businesses, it is transferred through small pipes beneath Reykjavík's sidewalks.

Artificial photosynthesis turns CO₂ into sustainable fuel

Carbon conversion focuses on a central perplexing question: if carbon dioxide is a leading driver of climate change, and fossil fuels are made of carbon-based molecules, can we devise a way to convert CO₂ into useful alternatives efficiently? This video breaks down a potential pathway using artificial photosynthesis, which uses sunlight to convert CO₂ into fuel.

Most plastics are not biodegradable because breaking their chemical bonds requires temperatures lethal to most microbes, and these organisms have not been exposed to plastic long enough to evolve the necessary enzymes.

Farts are tiny status reports from our gut microbiome, with American adults typically passing gas more than 30 times daily.

Watch a visualization of New York City's greenhouse gas emissions

About 1.72 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent gases are released into the atmosphere every second in the Big Apple, enough to fill a balloon 33 feet across at standard pressure and 59 degrees Fahrenheit. After a day, the spheres would pile up into a pyramid whose base spans from the bottom of Manhattan to the south of Central Park.

Atmospheric greenhouse gases trap thermal energy and make Earth habitable

The moon and Earth are at the same distance from the sun, but the moon experiences large fluctuations in surface temperature because it lacks an atmosphere to insulate it. Gases such as water vapor, ozone, carbon dioxide, and methane can intercept about 90% of the infrared radiation emitted by Earth's surface.

The Gasbuggy Project detonated a nuclear bomb to fracture underground rock formations

Part of Project Plowshare—a program aimed at finding peaceful uses for nuclear devices—the 1967 experiment sought to extract natural gas trapped within shale in underground New Mexico. Gas radioactivity was found to be excessively high for use without expensive processing, and the project was deemed an economic failure.

Excluding water vapor, greenhouse gases make up less than 1% of Earth's atmosphere

Although carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and most fluorinated gases account for only a minority of the planet's greenhouse effect due to their lower concentrations, they are more effective at trapping thermal radiation. While water vapor condenses within two weeks, other greenhouse gases linger in the atmosphere for years on average.