Staten Island’s Fresh Kills park, while not beautiful in name, is now beautiful nature. Once a 2,200 acre landfill site, accepting up to 29k tonnes of garbage daily since WWII, Fresh Kills is one of more than 500 former dumping sites across the USA that is turning landfill gas into fuel. At Fresh Kills, a gas collection system vacuums out the landfill gas and sends it to a purification plant, where it undergoes methane removal. The city then sells 1.5mill cubic feet of treated biogas to the local utility, which goes on to be used by local residents to cook, and heat their homes. It also is the largest park developed in NYC for more than a century, with the ecological restoration emphasising environmental sustainability and public concern for human impact. With extensive park lands, soccer fields, reclaimed wetlands and playgrounds, there’s a vision to develop kayaking spaces, large scale public art, facilitate birdwatching and bike riding. And that’s just the scratching the surface. Source: Bloomberg Green #Purpose23 #BloombergGreen #sustainability #NYC #NewYorkCity #landfill #USA #transformation #methane #regeneration
