Climate change impacts of introducing carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) in waste incineration

Christensen, Thomas Højlund; Bisinella, Valentina

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2021.03.046

Cited by 59 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…There are three options: use bioplastic instead of fossil-based plastic, recycling of plastic instead of incineration, or introduce carbon capture and storage to remove carbon dioxide from the flue gas. While the first two options will reduce the load from incineration, carbon capture and storage may make incineration a net saving . These issues must be specifically assessed, but our results show that although the current development in Chinese household waste management is contributing to reduce its climate change impact, new challenges must be addressed as the energy system changes introducing more renewable energy sources.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Climate Change Impact of the Development in Household Waste Management in China

Zhao

Chang

Liu

et al. 2022

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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The potential climate change impacts of the development in Chinese household waste management, with less landfilling, more incineration with energy recovery, and source-separated food waste treated in biorefineries, were assessed through a life cycle assessment. When the waste management system interacts with a fossil-based energy system, landfilling produces a load of 144 kg CO2-eq/ton wet waste, while incineration shows a saving of 36 kg CO2-eq/ton wet waste. The introduction of food waste source separation lowers climate change impacts by an additional 33 kg CO2-eq/ton at a 60% sorting efficiency. As the Chinese energy system lowers its climate change impact over the next 30 years, energy recovery from waste treatment will change its relative contribution to climate change. In nonfossil energy systems, landfilling is estimated to have a climate change load of 180–240 kg CO2-eq/ton wet waste, while incineration, including combinations with the source-separation of food waste, will have a load of 310–540 kg CO2-eq/ton wet waste. These large intervals are due to waste composition uncertainty. However, considering a 20 year CH4 characterization factor representing a shorter time perspective, the impacts from landfilling are more dramatic due to the large methane release. This significant climate change impact calls for an increased focus on the developments in Chinese household waste management. The key issues identified may also apply to other countries.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Climate Change Impact of the Development in Household Waste Management in China

Zhao

Chang

Liu

et al. 2022

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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“…These observations illustrate that reducing the environmental impact associated with global warming and CO 2 emissions (e.g., installing a CCS process), may cause larger environmental impacts in other ICs. However, these results do not imply that CCS should not be investigated or considered as a viable addition to WtE but rather indicates that further research is necessary which investigates other state-of-the-art CCS or CCU techniques coupled with WtE, which aligns with the conclusion drawn by Christensen et al (2021).…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

The influence of energy output and substitution on the environmental impact of waste-to-energy operation: quantification by means of a case study

Boakes

Voogd²,

Wauters³

et al. 2022

Clean Techn Environ Policy

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A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was conducted to evaluate the total environmental impact of state-of-theart Waste-to-Energy (WtE) in Belgium, with respect to recovered energy utilization and addition of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Four energy output scenarios were modelled on Umberto LCA software using primary data of mass and energy ows surrounding the six incinerators at the considered WtE plant, and prede ned processes from the Ecoinvent 3.6 database. The normalized LCA results suggest that by utilizing all the recovered energy as steam, the WtE plant can avoid an equivalent annual environmental impact value of approximately 21200, 36800, 6700, 15800, 37000 and 6900 average European citizens in the impact categories 'climate change', 'freshwater and terrestrial acidi cation', 'freshwater eutrophication, 'photochemical ozone creation' and 'respiratory effects, inorganics', 'terrestrial eutrophication', respectively. The 'Electricity and Steam with CCS' scenario resulted in the most avoided environmental impact in the impact category 'climate change'. However, in all other impact categories, it resulted in less avoided environmental impact compared to the 'Steam' scenario. The comparative analysis showed that 19 out of 24 of the LCA results varied by more than 50% between two energy substitution models, thus quantifying the in uence of energy substitution in LCA modelling. This study exempli es the environmental bene t WtE technology can realize by substituting conventional energy production processes that are reliant on fossil resources, whilst performing its primary function that is reducing the volume of non-recyclable waste, destroying hazardous organic components it contains and recovering useful materials from it.

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“…Each day, 20–25% of healthcare waste can be attributed to plastic packaging and products [ 11 ]. In the US, during the pandemic, several recycling programs were paused due to concerns about the risk of contamination, leading to an increase in incineration and landfilling to manage medical waste [ 7 ], thereby leading to concerns regarding potential toxic and hazardous air emissions along with ground and surface water pollution [ 12 , 13 ]. This poses a significant problem for rapid disposal and ensuring environmental safety and justice.…”

Section: Healthcare Waste and Environmental Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Environmental Policies to Reduce Pharmaceutical Pollution and Address Disparities

Desai¹,

Njoku

Nimo-Sefah

2022

IJERPH

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Pharmaceutical products, including active pharmaceutical ingredients and inactive ingredients such as packaging materials, have raised significant concerns due to their persistent input and potential threats to human and environmental health. Discourse on reducing pharmaceutical waste and subsequent pollution is often limited, as information about the toxicity of pharmaceuticals in humans is yet to be fully established. Nevertheless, there is growing awareness about ecotoxicity, and efforts to curb pharmaceutical pollution in the European Union (EU), United States (US), and Canada have emerged along with waste disposal and treatment procedures, as well as growing concerns about impacts on human and animal health, such as through antimicrobial resistance. Yet, the outcomes of such endeavors are often disparate and involve multiple agencies, organizations, and departments with little evidence of cooperation, collaboration, or oversight. Environmental health disparities occur when communities exposed to a combination of poor environmental quality and social inequities experience more sickness and disease than wealthier, less polluted communities. In this paper, we discuss pharmaceutical environmental pollution in the context of health disparities and examine policies across the US, EU, and Canada in minimizing environmental pollution.

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Climate change impacts of introducing carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) in waste incineration

Cited by 59 publications

References 26 publications

Climate Change Impact of the Development in Household Waste Management in China

Climate Change Impact of the Development in Household Waste Management in China

The influence of energy output and substitution on the environmental impact of waste-to-energy operation: quantification by means of a case study

Comparing Environmental Policies to Reduce Pharmaceutical Pollution and Address Disparities

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