Evaluation of emission inventory for the emitted pollutants from landfill of Borujerd and modeling of dispersion in the atmosphere

Nowadays, air pollution is a serious problem in big cities, since municipal solid wastes contain high amounts of organic compounds. The aim of this study is to evaluate the emission inventory of the pollutants emitted from the municipal solid wastes landfill of the city of Borujerd, the capital of Borujerd County, Lorestan Province, in western part of Iran. First, all the necessary information, such as the amount of disposed solid waste in the landfill, analysis of the municipal solid wastes and the metrological data were collected. Then, the information was analyzed by the LandGEM model to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide, methane, and non-methane organic compounds emitted into the atmosphere from the Borujerd landfill. Next, the distribution of the pollutants emitted from the landfill was modelled using AERMOD software. The results showed that the majority of biogas is generated between 2015 and 2025. The maximum amount of biogas generation will be observed in 2020, which would be 12,900, 4600 and 200 tons for carbon dioxide, methane, and non-methane organic compounds, respectively. The Borujerd landfill has the potential to generate 4035 MW electricity in 2020.