Contaminated Land

Landfill Sites and Other Landfilling

Generally landfill/ground gas is a mixture of gasses derived from the degradation of organic matter (such as garden wastes, newspaper, etc.), although under certain circumstances bacterial action on inorganic compounds may also result in gas generation. Sources of landfill/ground gas include:

• Landfilling
• coal mining
• general contamination
• sewerage
• natural soils/geology and made ground
• Infilled ponds, depressions and made ground

Landfill gas is usually odourless or foul smelling. If you believe that you have a gas problem and/or you can smell mains gas (i.e. the gas smell that comes from your cooker), you need to contact National Grid immediately, who deal with mains gas escapes.

Typical constituents of ground gas include methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen. In addition landfill and ground gasses may contain hydrogen, carbon monoxide, water vapour, hydrocarbons, hydrogen sulphide, etc. although other gasses need to be considered on a case by case basis.

Landfill/ground gas may pose risks to people as a result of the properties of its component gasses:

• Asphyxiation (either lack of oxygen or too much of another gas)
• Explosive (methane, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulphide, hydrocarbons, etc)
• Toxic (Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, etc.)

The Environmental Protection Unit performs a number of services for ground/landfill gas. These include:

• Indoor gas investigations (both routine monitoring and as a service request)
• Out of hours service for properties with Tameside MBC gas alarms installed
• Borehole monitoring and gas analysis of landfill sites within the Borough
• Investigations by installing and monitoring borehole and spike test positions (both routine monitoring and as a service request)
• Review of ground gas data for the Council and other organisations (for example during the planning process or contaminated land regime)
• Response to gas incidents (for example explosions or gas releases)
• Environmental and landfill searches

The Council has further information on landfill sites in the Borough, which is available through an Environmental Search.

The Council undertakes a free internal gas monitoring service for property situated near to a landfill site or other significant gas source. Contact the Environmental Protection Unit.