KIGALI - The long awaited process to begin the extraction of methane gas from Nyanza Landfill will begin next week with a Rhineland-Palatinate based German utility company, Stadtwerke Mainz AG ,The New Times exclusively reports.

The development follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) last month between Stadtwerke Mainz AG, and the Ministry of Infrastructure (MININFRA) and the Kigali City Council (KCC).

The UNDP Programme Officer at the Environment Unit, Toshikazu Mito, told this reporter in an email that the work on the site would begin early next month.

"We just got good news yesterday that the German team will start the drilling test for methane gas capturing at Nyanza landfill site from February 3. You are all welcome to see the activity at the site,” he said

The project began with a proposal presented by the company expressing their interest in conducting a test drilling at Nyanza landfill site to check the feasibility of capturing  methane gas on site and generate electricity from the gas.

In a press statement, KCC’s Head of the Media and Communications Unit, Bruno Rangira, says that the idea also includes receiving carbon credits through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) scheme by exchanging methane gas into carbon dioxide and energy.

The methane gas extraction is the first of the several projects that will determine whether the landfill is renovated or phased out by year 2013.

So far, Consolidated Waste Management Project (CWMP) has completed a master plan showing how water, land and the atmosphere can be protected in the process of methane gas extraction.

Thirty hectares of land have already been allocated for the project that will begin this year.

The phase out of the Nyanza landfill and studies for a new one will cost an estimated $3 million. The project is jointly executed by KCC and the Ministry of Infrastructure.

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