Landfill gas monitoring

Landfill gas monitoring means checking the air around a big pile of garbage (like the one you see when you take out your trash) to make sure it's not dangerous. When garbage sits in a pile, it releases gases that can make people sick or cause explosions. Landfill gas monitoring is like checking the oven to make sure it's not too hot before you cook your pizza.

So people put special machines near the pile of garbage that can "smell" the air and see if anything dangerous is coming out. These machines can tell if there's too much of a gas called methane which is very flammable and can cause explosions. They can also tell if there's too little oxygen in the air. Just like we need air to breathe, microbes in the garbage need oxygen to "eat" the trash and break it down into smaller pieces. If there's not enough oxygen, these microbes can start making other gases that are also harmful to people.

If the monitoring machines see that there's too much methane or too little oxygen around the garbage pile, they will send a signal to people who work there. Then they can take actions to make sure nothing bad happens like adding more air or even lighting the gas on fire in a safe way so it doesn't explode.

In short, landfill gas monitoring is about making sure the air around garbage piles is safe so nobody gets sick or hurt.