Environmental burdens of source-selected biowaste treatments: comparing scenarios to fulfil the European Union landfill directive. The case of Catalonia

Abstract

The Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW), or biowaste, can be valorized using different treatment technologies, such as anaerobic digestion and composting or the combination of them. The use of the end products (biogas and/or compost) generates benefits over the alternative of sending waste to landfill. The European Union regulations (i.e. Landfill Directive) encourage the diversion of untreated biodegradable waste from landfilling. However, OFMSW treatment installations also produce environmental impacts that must be assessed. This paper presents different future scenarios at regional scale proposed to accomplish the Landfill Directive and their environmental assessment in terms of environmental impact categories. The geographical area under study is Catalonia (Spain). Field data obtained in previous studies undertaken in the same geographical area are used to determine the environmental burdens of the present situation in order to compare them with different future scenarios. A combined scenario to treat 921 Gg of OFMSW source selected including the increase of the quantity of biowaste treated by anaerobic digestion (61.2% of the total biowaste), the modification of composting plants to ensure the treatment of all the gaseous emissions (25.3% and 8.1% of the total biowaste treated in in-vessel composting plants and in enclosed windrows composting plants respectively) and the incorporation of home composting as a waste treatment alternative (5.4% of total biowaste) results in the lowest impact scenario considered in the present study. Energy recovery through anaerobic digestion and benefits of gaseous emissions reduction are the key factors in the impact reduction of biowaste treatment.

A Tool for the Selection of Food Waste Management Approaches for the Hospitality and Food Service Sector in the UK

“…Particularly, FWM scenarios with relatively high participation of off-site AD might be beneficial from an environmental and economic perspective [70]. AD can be a less carbon-intensive process for managing FW [49,50,62,77,[97][98][99]; it provides the best carbon return on investment. Carbon return on investment is a metric that shows the carbon savings as a function of the cost of investment among FWM methods [100].…”

“…Environmental impacts of AD: AD appears to perform negatively in terms of acidification potential [54,58] and particulate matter formation [59] due to fugitive emissions released from digestate handling and application [46], biogas leakage during operation [60] and biogas combustion in CHP plant [61]. Therefore, to maximise the benefits of AD, gas emission treatment equipment [62], the development of technologies to enhance the quality of digestate [41,45] and an increase in biogas production efficiency [63,64] need to be considered. In most cases, biogas is combusted in a CHP unit for the generation of heat and electricity (with conversion efficiency having a typical range of 24-40% [65,66]) that covers the on-site energy demands, and any excess electricity is typically exported to the grid [46,67].…”

“…For example, the replacement of coal electricity with biogas electricity would lead to a higher reduction of GHG emissions (i.e., 130%), while the replacement of grid natural gas with upgraded bio-methane would lead to a lower reduction in GHG emissions (i.e., 20%) compared to the current use of biogas in CHP plants in the UK [63]. Digestate handling may significantly increase the competitiveness and attractiveness of AD [64] also contributing to the reduction of odour emissions-a neglected aspect in LCA studies [62].…”

Life Cycle Assessment of current and prospective waste management systems in Brazil

“…Therefore, based on Naroznova, Møller, Larsen, et al (2016) the transfer coefficients presented in Table 1-8 were used for the wet fraction. (Amlinger, Peyr, & Cuhls, 2008), German MBT facilities (Fricke, Santen, & Wallmann, 2005) and Spanish composting and AD facilities (Colón et al, 2015). (Amlinger et al, 2008;Colón et al, 2015;DEFRA, 2011;European Commission, 2006;Fricke et al, 2005) * only in scenario systems with biogas upgrading (when biogas is used directly for energy production it is assumed that heat needs are covered on site)…”