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Comment by vlahmot | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn’t composting have the same issue as tossing it in the dump though?

Landfills are actually better, in that in many cases commercial operators can recover the gas and turn it into renewable fuel.

There are now a few startups trying to make home/DIY anaerobic digesters that you can collect the gas from. Would be interesting for e.g. keeping a greenhouse warm year-round without the electricity spend.

For example (I have no idea how competent the product is): https://www.homebiogas.com/Products/HomeBiogas2

Put a compost pile inside your greenhouse and you get warmth and CO2 for your plants: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-gree...

This is of no use in the developed world for a normal house. Try getting your home owners insurance to pay off a claim against an accident involving this. Also, according to its specs you can get 2hrs of cooking per day if you supply 5 gallons of animal manure. That's a tiny amount of energy compared to modern energy needs.

For most people this would be a novelty, maybe you could run an outdoor grill off of it.

I'm sure most families can gather 5 gallons of organic waste per week, which would provide them enough gas to have a BBQ once a week.

In a landfill, only anaerobic bacteria can survive. These are unable to break down organic material as cleanly as the aerobic bacteria in a managed compost pile. See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21483584 for links to sources.

Aerobic vs anaerobic decomposition produces different byproducts.

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