Click on the video player above for more FOX 13 coverage.

BRADENTON, Fla. – Garbage dumped at Manatee County’s Lena Road landfill will soon be converted from methane gas into usable energy. The goal is to help the county go from ‘waste to worth.’ The process is already being done on a small level, but a partnership and project will soon make it large scale. 

MORE NEWS: Injuries reported in I-275 crash that caused major delays in Manatee County

The backstory:

The items Manatee County residents put out for the trash end up at the Lena Road landfill in Bradenton. 

“The landfill, just through the natural decomposition of garbage and waste, one of the products is methane and menthane is what natural gas is. That’s being generated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” Patrick Shea, the utilities director for Manatee County, said. 

Twenty-five percent of gas generated from the breakdown of garbage is used in part to power a water reclamation facility on site. The other 75% is flared out on site. 

“Right now, it is truly wasted. It’s a wasted opportunity, this will really bring the county forward and generate revenue from what is a valuable commodity,” Shea said. 

Manatee County has entered a partnership with Nopetro Energy and Johnson Controls. 

Construction will soon start on a $50 million facility to capture gas and process it into ready-to-use natural gas for homes, businesses and more. The facility will be built, paid for and operated by Nopetro Energy. 

Why you should care:

“We are capturing that methane before it hits the atmosphere. Cleaning it up and the beauty of Nopetro is we also have our own compressed natural gas fleets and fueling stations. We are helping companies get off of diesel and compressed natural gas, which is much better for the environment,” Travis Payne, the senior vice president of RNG Development Nopetro, said.

Nopetro said locally the process will cut emissions equivalent to 5.3 million gallons of car gasoline yearly, and produce enough energy for more than 4,500 homes. It will also generate a new revenue source for Manatee County. 

“As our energy needs expand, the energy will come from somewhere. We are an industrious society and country; we will find the energy. This is one more commodity in that energy bucket that we need as we grow and our population expands,” Shea said. 

What’s next:

Construction is expected to begin in 2026 on the renewable natural gas production facility. 

Operations are expected to start in 2027.