Life cycle assessment (LCA) of waste management strategies:Landfilling, anaerobic digestion and incineration

The aim of this study is to assess the different municipal solid waste (MSW) management scenarios using the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, which can be considered three different scenarios including: landfilling without biogas recovery combined with composting (Scenario 0) as baseline scenario, Bio-drying combined with incineration to generate electricity (Scenario 1) and anaerobic digestion (AD) to produce biogas and compost combined with incineration (Scenario 2). For this purpose, the capital of Iran, Tehran, was analyzed through LCA approach in order to assess environmental impacts (climate change, acidification and eutrophication) of the scenarios. In this investigation SimaPro version 8.0.5.13 with CML method and Ecoinvent data bases were used. Obtained results are presented by means of graphs and compared to each other. Based on the results, scenario 2 is suggested as the most desirable impact on climate change, and concerning the acidification and eutrophication impact, the scenario 1 had the most favorable impact respect to scenario 0 and scenario 2. This is probably due to the indirect emissions deriving from electricity consumption for the bio-drying system without leachate production compared to landfilling in Sc-0 and anaerobic digestion in Sc-1 the bio-drying system without leachate production (scenario 1) compared to landfilling in scenario 0 and AD in scenario 1. Although scenario 1 is being considered to be implemented in Iran in the future, the results of this study reveal that is may not represent the most environmentally sound waste management strategy.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) of waste management strategies:Landfilling, anaerobic digestion and incineration Keywords:

LCA , MSW , Climate change , AD , Bio drying , Landfilling , and Incineration