It was the world’s largest landfill until it closed in 2001. Now it is New York City’s newest park. At 2,200 acres, Freshkills Park is almost three times the size of Central Park and the largest park to be developed in New York City in over 100 years. 

Engineered with layers of soil and infrastructure, the area has become a place for wildlife, recreation, science, education, and art. And it also produces biogas used for cooking and heating in homes on Staten Island.

A gas collection system vacuums out the landfill gas and sends it to a purification plant, where methane is removed. The city sells 1.5 million cubic feet of this treated biogas to the local utility. (The average American household uses 70,000 cubic feet of natural gas annually.) It is one of more than 500 former US dumps that are now transforming landfill gas into fuel.