Accomplishments of the Landfill Methane Outreach Program
Landfill gas energy projects prevent direct methane emissions from landfills and avoid carbon dioxide emissions by displacing fossil fuel use with LFG, an alternative energy resource. Through LMOP, EPA provides landfill owners and operators a suite of tools and technical resources to help them overcome the obstacles to developing LFG energy projects. LMOP provides technical assistance to both smaller landfills not covered by EPA regulations and larger, regulated operations that are combusting their gas but not yet using it as a clean energy resource.
On this page:
- Thirty Years of LMOP
- Achievements in 2023
- LMOP Annual Emission Reductions
- Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies
Thirty Years of LMOP
- LMOP was launched by EPA on December 1, 1994 with 25 initial Partners—19 of these Partners are still participating with the Program as of 2024.
- An additional 30+ Partners joined LMOP by April 1995.
- LMOP surpassed 1,000 Partners in 2011.
- LMOP has developed four tools, published more than a dozen technical documents, hosted dozens of events, responded to thousands of technical questions or requests for data, and enabled public access to valuable landfill and project data as evidenced by more than 100,000 data file downloads over the past five years alone.
- View a timeline of key milestones specific to LMOP or related to the general U.S. LFG energy industry.
Achievements in 2023
- Reduced methane emissions from hundreds of U.S. landfills and avoided CO2 emissions totaling approximately 25.9 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2023. The nationwide total of all projects operating during 2023 was 542; LMOP assisted a subset of these projects.
- Over the past 29 years, LMOP has assisted a total of 742 LFG energy projects which have collectively reduced and avoided more than 714 MMTCO2e since the Program began.
- Welcomed 13 new LMOP Partners.
LMOP Annual Emission Reductions (2000-2023)
| Year | Methane and CO2 Emission Reductions (MMTCO2e) |
|---|---|
| 2000 | 9.49 |
| 2005 | 18.03 |
| 2006 | 18.97 |
| 2007 | 22.05 |
| 2008 | 22.92 |
| 2009 | 24.74 |
| 2010 | 27.15 |
| 2011 | 29.89 |
| 2012 | 32.00 |
| 2013 | 44.01 |
| 2014 | 43.14 |
| 2015 | 42.52 |
| 2016 | 46.09 |
| 2017 | 46.36 |
| 2018 | 44.07 |
| 2019 | 40.63 |
| 2020 | 36.73 |
| 2021 | 29.21 |
| 2022 | 27.83 |
| 2023 | 25.91 |
Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies
It is helpful to think of the environmental benefits of greenhouse gas emission reductions in more relatable terms by using EPA's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator. The total estimated emission reductions from LMOP-assisted projects in 2023 (25.9 MMTCO2e) are approximately equivalent to either of the following:
