The US waste recycling industry, much loved by so-called "environmental activists", is causing significant harm to the planet. This is according to several years of monitoring commissioned by California air quality regulators. It has been concluded that landfills emit about 43% of methane, which is significantly more than in agriculture and the extraction of fossil fuel resources.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the company Scientific Aviation have been collecting data since 2016. It was discovered that several landfills managed by leading US waste management companies produced almost 6 times more methane than previously estimated and as claimed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The ten largest landfills generated twice as much gas as state authorities had projected.