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The years between active filling and final closure are often the most challenging period in a landfill’s life. Methane follows the pathways traditional systems were never designed to fully capture, odors become difficult to manage, and every missed cubic foot of gas represents both an environmental liability and a lost resource. A new combination of an engineered cover and shallow gas interception technology is helping operators tackle both problems at once.
Landfills spend far longer in transition than many people realize.
A disposal area may stop receiving waste yet remain years away from final closure. During that time, operators face a familiar set of challenges. Intermediate soil covers settle, crack, and require ongoing maintenance. Stormwater infiltrates the waste mass and contributes to leachate generation. Methane migrates toward the path of least resistance. Odor complaints emerge. Regulatory scrutiny increases.
Meanwhile, the landfill gas collection system continues doing exactly what it was designed to do: collect gas from deeper portions of the waste mass.
The challenge is that not all methane originates from places deep wells can efficiently influence. According to the U.S. EPA and various studies, deep wells with soil covers can achieve a maximum collection of up to 80 percent. This means the remaining 20 percent has to go somewhere.
Shallow waste layers, perimeter areas, slopes, and transitional zones can become pathways for gas movement, allowing methane to migrate toward the surface before it ever reaches the collection network. The result may be reduced collection efficiency, increased fugitive emissions, odor concerns, and reduced opportunities for landfill gas-to-energy or renewable natural gas (RNG) projects. Traditional deep-well systems remain a critical component of landfill gas management, but they were never intended to solve every gas migration pathway on their own.
Looking Beyond the Cover
Historically, interim cover and gas collection have been approached as separate operational challenges. One system manages the surface. Another manages the gas. In practice, however, the two are closely connected.
An effective cover can significantly reduce odors, limit infiltration, reduce erosion, and improve site management. But controlling the surface does not eliminate the need to manage the gas beneath it. In many situations, reducing escape routes at the surface can reveal the next challenge: directing shallow methane into a controlled collection pathway. That thinking led to the development of a two-part approach that combines surface control with shallow gas interception.
Part One: Controlling the Surface with CapSure™
CapSure™ is an engineered transitional landfill cover designed specifically for the years between active filling and final closure. Engineered with a structured geomembrane base that is layered with a protective wind-resistant air layer, the system creates a durable barrier intended to remain in service for extended periods of up to 15 years while maintaining operational access and flexibility.
For landfill operators, the benefits are practical as much as environmental. CapSure helps:
- Control odors and fugitive methane emissions
- Minimize water infiltration
- Reduce leachate generation
- Limit erosion
- Preserve valuable landfill airspace
- Provide a durable and safer working surface for operations and maintenance personnel
- Reduce ongoing cover maintenance requirements
Unlike traditional soil covers that consume landfill capacity, the thin engineered system preserves airspace that may ultimately be used for future waste placement. It also provides a stable platform that can help operators maintain better control over more challenging areas.聽 Simply put, CapSure addresses the surface side of the equation. But surface control is only half the story.
Part Two: Capturing What Deep Wells Miss with EasyFlo™
Methane does not move uniformly through a landfill.
While deep gas extraction wells remain the backbone of most collection systems, gas can still migrate through upper waste layers and along landfill edges where traditional infrastructure may have limited influence. Those are precisely the areas EasyFlo™ was designed to address.
Integrated with the CapSure system, EasyFlo acts as a shallow gas interception network. Rather than replacing existing gas infrastructure, it works alongside it, capturing methane moving through transitional and near-surface zones and directing that gas back into the active collection system.
The concept is straightforward鈥擟apSure controls the surface and EasyFlo captures the gas that migrates beyond the effective reach of traditional deep wells. Together, they address two separate pathways that contribute to emissions, odors, and lost gas recovery opportunities.
The result is not a replacement for a conventional wellfield. It is an enhancement designed to improve the performance of the infrastructure already in place.
Why the Combination Matters
As environmental regulations continue to evolve and methane reduction receives greater attention, landfill operators are increasingly focused on total system performance rather than individual components.
Addressing both the surface and shallow gas migration pathways can produce benefits that extend well beyond emissions reduction. Operational outcomes may include:
- Increased landfill gas collection
- Reduced fugitive methane emissions
- Improved odor management
- Enhanced environmental compliance
- Reduced infiltration and leachate generation
- Preservation of landfill airspace
- Lower operations and maintenance requirements
- Greater potential for renewable natural gas production through improved methane recovery
For facilities with landfill gas-to-energy or RNG projects, the value proposition becomes particularly compelling. Every additional unit of methane directed into the collection system is methane that can potentially be converted into energy rather than escaping into the atmosphere.
Field Performance Tells the Story
The most important test of any landfill technology happens in the field.
Following installation of the integrated CapSure and EasyFlo system at an active landfill, operators monitored gas collection performance, methane concentrations, applied vacuum, and surface emissions. The objective was simple: determine whether addressing both surface control and shallow gas migration could improve overall collection efficiency.
The results were significant.
The site recorded a聽61.5% increase in captured landfill gas, along with substantial reductions in surface methane emissions verified through aerial monitoring. Operators also reported improved odor management and stronger overall landfill gas collection performance.
Those results reinforce an increasingly important lesson for the industry: improving landfill gas recovery is not solely about adding more wells. In many cases, meaningful gains come from addressing the pathways that conventional infrastructure was never specifically designed to manage.
A Smarter Approach to the Transitional Years
The years between active operations and final closure have historically been treated as an awkward middle stage of landfill life, requiring constant maintenance while generating persistent operational challenges. Today, that perspective is changing.
By combining engineered surface control with targeted shallow gas interception, landfill operators have an opportunity to improve collection efficiency, reduce emissions, strengthen compliance efforts, and create additional value from the methane already being generated within the waste mass.
CapSure and EasyFlo are designed around a simple idea: controlling the surface and capturing the remaining gas should not be separate strategies. Because when both challenges are addressed together, the entire landfill gas management system performs better.
Contact Information
Watershed Geo 鈥�1125 Sanctuary Parkway, Suite 180 Alpharetta, GA 30009
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