Methane-eating bacteria are ready to capture landfill emissions

 Image courtesy of Norma Jean Gargasz / Alamy Stock Photo

Joel Kontinen

Bioreactors housing methane-eating bacteria could offer a portable, off-grid solution for soaking up methane leaks from sites like landfills and coal mines.

What should we do about methane?

Methane leaks from sites like rice paddies, landfills, dairy farms and coal mines could be plugged with the help of gas-guzzling bacteria, helping to curb near-term  global warming.

Later this year, researchers in the US will deploy a bioreactor filled with a specially bred strain of methane-eating bacteria at a landfill site in Washington.

They hope the field test will prove that these bacteria, known as methanotrophs, can be deployed in bioreactors to harvest methane.

But global warming is linked with evolution, as only millions of years support it.

Source:

Madeleine Cuff 2025 Methane-eating bacteria are ready to capture landfill emissions | New Scientist 11 April