The Jawaharnagar landfill on the outskirts of Hyderabad, the city's main garbage dumping ground, has been ranked globally fourth highest in terms of methane emissions from landfills. The landfill, managed by private waste management agency Ramky Enviro Engineers, is estimated to receive over 9,600 metric tonnes of solid waste on a daily basis. It has a methane emission rate of 5.9 tonnes per hour, according to Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit that monitors methane emissions through remote sensing technology.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)’s Stop Methane Project recently published a list of top 25 sites in the waste sector across the world that had the highest methane emission rates in 2025, compiled from Carbon Mapper’s satellite data. Secunderabad, Telangana, where the Jawaharnagar landfill is located, ranked fourth internationally.
According to the report, “over a year, a landfill emitting 5 tonnes of methane per hour would contribute about as much to global warming as one million SUVs or one large (500 megawatt) coal-fired power plant.”
A landfill managed by Antony Waste Handling Cell Ltd in Mumbai has ranked 12th on the list with an emission rate of 4.9 tonnes per hour, the only other Indian city on the list.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, topped the list with an emission rate of 7.6 tonnes of methane per hour, followed by Jakarta, Indonesia (6.3 tonnes) and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (6.0 tonnes).
According to the UCLA report, Carbon Mapper gives source emission rates by averaging the emission rates from each time an instrument observes a source. UCLA’s list focused on sites observed on at least two dates and which showed at least two quantified emissions plumes – a visible quantity of emissions from a source.
Carbon Mapper’s two satellite instruments observed the Jawaharnagar landfill 20 times in 2025, and quantified the emissions 14 times on seven different days between February 14 and December 26, 2025. The emission rates observed ranged from 464 kg per hour on November 7 to 11.1 tonnes per hour on December 5.
The report mentions that landfill emissions vary over time and the satellite data measurements do not exactly indicate the total emissions throughout the year.
Moreover, landfill emission rates do vary somewhat over time, so capturing high hourly emission rates on a set of particular dates is not the same as knowing how much a landfill emitted, in total, across an entire year, it said. ”Nevertheless, in our judgment this is about as close as one can get, given current data, to a list of the largest landfill emitters in 2025,” the report said.
Residents of Jawaharnagar have been complaining about pollution and stench from the landfill for several years. A petition has been filed against the pollution with the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has engaged Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay to provide recommendations for waste management and landfill rehabilitation at the site.