UNIT V PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

Okay, this problem discusses determining if a community of 50,000 people who do not have a municipal recycle program and they send all of their refuse to the municipal landfill. The question is, “Will the landfill generate enough natural gas (methane) to meet the needs of the city if the municipality needs to annually generate 15 million cubic meters of natural gas and the city collects all of the methane that is generated?”. Here’s additional information you need to know. Each resident generates 4.38 pounds of refuse per day, and the information came from page 43. Each pound of refuse generates 257 liters of methane, and that would be on page 239. So we’re literally going to see how much methane can be created with the waste adding 50,000 people. You use literally what you read in here: 4.38 pounds of refuse generated per person, per day times 50,000 people. So we’ve got that number. We’ve taken care of this. And now, this is where you kind of have to think about, “what else are we talking about?”. Here’s our additional information. The 257 liters of methane and that’s per pound of refuse—that’s what it says here—per pound. So there’s that. And then, we are going to convert that to cubic meters because here’s what we’re looking for: will there be enough? At least, you’ve got to have at least 15 million at the minimum. So 1,000 liters is equivalent to one cubic meter, and then we have 365 days in one year. So we have pounds, and pounds are gone. And then we have our people, and then our day, and then our liters, and the year is part of this. So we literally take the 4.38 and multiply by 50,000, and multiply by 257, then multiply by 365 equals. Then, divide it by 1,000, and you will get 20,543,295 cubic meters per year. I didn’t write per year here, of methane, which is plenty. So as long as it at least generates 15 million, well it generates 20 million. So the answer is yes, the landfill will generate enough gas to meet the needs of the municipality.