(Radio Iowa) – A ribbon cutting Wednesday celebrated the new facility in Scott County that converts landfill waste gas into usable natural gas. The facility was built by Waga Energy and Bryce Stalcup, the executive director of the Scott County Waste Commission says the gas generated will help power around four-thousand homes each year.  “Unfortunately, there’s waste that you just can’t recycle or divert, and it has to go somewhere,” he says. “Well, when we can then capture the gas as that waste breaks down and then get that use of it, that’s the best thing that we can think possible for our community.”

The process at the Davenport plant takes the gas produced by decomposing garbage and filters it to extract carbon dioxide and other pollutants, and then sends it straight into the MidAmerican energy pipeline. “For Scott County, what this means is cleaner air, better use of our natural resources, and proof that sustainability and economic responsibility can go hand in hand,” Stalcup says.

A new facility in Scott County recovers gas from the landfill. (Waga Energy photo)

The facility is expected to help prevent the landfill site from producing nearly 16-thousand tons of C-O-2 equivalent emissions each year. The facility has been operating for more than a month. It’s the eighth landfill gas capturing facility in Iowa, and the second that Waga Energy has built in the United States.