Toyota officials have unveiled a planned partnership with a Kentucky landfill that will generate plant electricity from the landfill's gas. The plan is expected to begin later this month. Electricity generated by the project will be enough to produce about 10,000 vehicles per year at the Georgetown, Kentucky manufacturing plant.
Having a Landfill operator working directly with a manufacturer on this type of project has never before been accomplished in the United States. Toyota's Georgetown plant will collect the methane from the landfill and turn it into electricity via a 6.5 mile underground line. Methane is a byproduct of trash decomposition. When the methane can be captured and burned, this reduces greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA. The Georgetown plant is already a zero-landfill operation.
Toyota recently announced a sustainability plan that would largely eliminate all CO2 emissions from its vehicles and manufacturing plants by 2050.
