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Ottawa has pledged to help fund a city-run project aimed at reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses coming from Calgary landfills.

The $5.8 million in funding is part of the federal government’s Low Carbon Economy Challenge and will allow the city’s Waste and Recycling Services department to expand and install landfill gas collection wells at the East Calgary Landfill.

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Methane gas is created as landfill garbage decomposes. The city’s vertical extraction wells then collect and convert the gas to CO2 by burning it off by a flare rather than seeping out into the atmosphere.

Martin Ortiz, performance operations leader for waste and recycling services, said methane is around 25 times more harmful to the environment than CO2. He said the project will help reduce Calgary’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 630,000 tonnes of CO2 over the lifetime of the system.

“In 2017 we gathered around 40,000 tonnes of CO2 . . . at this site, which is good news for the environment,” Ortiz said.