Abstract
This study aimed to propose a practical methodology for estimating the methane generation rate constant for the landfills in tropical developing countries that can be used for predicting methane generation and emission, with specific focus on Southeast Asian urban areas where many clean development mechanism (CDM) projects are in progression. The first order decay equation was used to evaluate the methane generation rate constant by using the rate of methane emissions per amount of waste in place from different age landfills. The fitting of the estimated methane emissions of landfills to first order decay equation suggested a methane generation rate constant of 0.33 yr-1 that equivalent to 2.1 year in term of half-life. The high methane generation rate constant that obtained from this study might be caused by the high content of rapidly degradable organic carbon in waste combined with high moisture content and temperature in the waste body that stimulated anaerobic degradation and produced more of LFG in a short period.
