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The final disposal of solid waste is today one of the most important problems affecting the Latin American region in environmental terms. The most suitable for final disposal is landfill.

This paper provides basic information about the generation, gas composition and product management of final disposal of solid waste in landfills and options for its use after harvest. Proceeds from the biodegradation of waste in these landfills are leachate and gases, the latter called biogas.

The production of biogas in large fillings allows its use by transforming them into electrical energy having a high initial investment, but can be self-financing. The biogas generated in landfills can be captured using a biogas collection system that usually burns through gas burners. Alternatively, the recovered gas can be used in different ways. For example: production of electricity through the use of internal combustion generators, turbines or microturbines or used as fuel for water heaters or other facilities. In addition to energy benefits in the use of biogas, harvesting and control of biogas generated helps to reduce polluting air emissions.

A landfill is a place of disposal of household solid waste or municipal. A particular area of land or an excavation that receives domestic solid waste, industrial solid waste, commercial or non-hazardous sludge. According to the literature, any place where domestic solid waste are being dumped in large quantities, in principle, a bioreactor generating leachate and liquid gases, which depend on a number of variables related to the characteristics of waste, from disposal site, the disposition, climate, etc.

In a landfill, the various components of solid waste is degraded anaerobically at different rates. For example, food is broken down faster than paper products. Although the leather, rubber and some plastics are also organic materials, usually resist biodegradation. Some lignocellulosic materials, plastics, textiles and other organic materials are very resistant to decay via anaerobic organisms. Despite the lack of uniformity in the anaerobic, have developed some empirical formulas to predict the amount of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO 2) generated from the decomposition of cellulose and other organic materials.