From the edge of Eastern Creek Landfill in western Sydney, you can see tiny trucks far below as they spiral around a vast quarry ready to dump waste. At the end of each day, workers compact the rubbish and cover it with dirt, creating layers of what some call a “garbage lasagne”.

To most observers it looks like a modern landfill site. Jarryd Doran, the chief executive of renewable energy company LGI, sees something different: a gasfield.

“Even if every landfill was to stop receiving rubbish today, and no new material went into landfills across Australia, there is still decades of gas that these sites will continue to produce, just based on the waste material already there,” Doran said.

The pit is zigzagged with black gas pipes, and in one corner there is a drill rig. Behind you, on high

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