EU strategies and policies on soil and waste management to offset greenhouse gas emissions

Marmo, Luca

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2007.09.030

Cited by 47 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The potential for carbon binding in soils by compost amendment is acknowledged in several studies (e.g. Marmo, 2008); the actual value of 14 % of C being sequestered is identical to the binding estimated by agro-ecological modelling of compost use on farm land with a typical Danish crop rotation scheme (see Bruun et al, 2006).…”

Section: Life Cycle Inventory (Lci) For Compostmentioning

confidence: 75%

Environmental inventory modelling of the use of compost and peat in growth media preparation

Boldrin

Hartling

Laugen

et al. 2010

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

124

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Compost produced from biological treatment of organic waste has a potential for substituting peat in growth media preparation. The Life Cycle Inventories (LCIs) of the two alternatives were compared using LCA-modelling (EASEWASTE) considering a 100 year period and a volumetric substitution ratio of 1:1. For the compost alternative, the composting process, growth media use, and offsetting of mineral fertilizers were considered. For the peat alternative, peat-land preparation, excavation, transportation, and growth media use were considered. It was assumed that for compost 14% of the initial carbon was left in the soil after 100 years, while all carbon in peat was mineralized. With respect to greenhouse gas emissions, the former is considered a saving, while the later is considered an emission, because peat in a peatland is considered stored biogenic carbon. The leaching during the growth media use was assessed by means of batch leaching tests involving 4 compost samples and 7 peat samples. The compost leached 3-20 times more heavy metals and other compounds than the peat. The life-cycle-assessment showed that compost performs better regarding global warming (savings in the range of 70-150 kg CO 2 -eq. Mg -1 ) and nutrient enrichment (savings in the range of 1.7-6.8 kg NO 3 Mg -1 compost), while peat performs better in some toxic categories, because of the lower content of heavy metals.

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Section: Life Cycle Inventory (Lci) For Compostmentioning

confidence: 75%

Environmental inventory modelling of the use of compost and peat in growth media preparation

Boldrin

Hartling

Laugen

et al. 2010

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

124

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The stable organic matter has a turnover of 100 to 1000 years and thus a fraction of the C is bound in soil for long periods (Smith et al, 2001;Favoino & Hogg, 2008) and removed from the C cycle. This bound C can be seen as a sink of CO 2 (as if it is removed from the atmosphere) and it can be credited as an avoided downstream emission of CO 2 to the waste management system (Marmo, 2008). If C input (kg) is the C content in compost and C bind is the fraction of C which is "stable", then the sink of CO 2 (CO 2,bind ; kg) can be calculated as: 2, 44 12…”

Section: Use On Land Of Compostmentioning

confidence: 99%

Composting and compost utilization: accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming contributions

et al. 2009

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Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to composting of organic waste and use of compost was assessed from a waste management perspective. The GHG accounting for composting includes use of electricity and fuels, emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from the composting process, and savings obtained by the use of the compost. The GHG account depends on waste type and composition (kitchen organics, garden waste), technology type (open systems, closed systems, home composting), the efficiency of off-gas cleaning at enclosed composting systems, and the use of the compost. The latter is an important issue and is related to the long term binding of carbon in the soil, to related effects in terms of soil improvement and to what the compost substitutes; this could be fertilizer and peat for soil improvement or for growth media production. The overall Global Warming Factor (GWF) for composting therefore varies between significant savings (-900 kg CO 2 -equivalents tonne -1 wet waste (ww)) and a net load (300 kg CO 2 -equivalents tonne -1 ww). The major savings are obtained by use of compost as a substitute for peat in the production of growth media. However, it may be difficult for a specific composting plant to document how the compost is used and what it actually substitutes for. Two cases representing various technologies were assessed showing how GHGs accounting can be done when specific information and data are available.

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“…100 years), it will represent an actual "long term" removal of carbon from the carbon cycle. This benefit is credited to the system as an avoided CO 2 -emission (Marmo, 2008;Boldrin et al, 2009). We include this effect -carbon storage -in the downstream (avoided) emissions and use the numbers provided by Bruun et al (2006) to estimate it.…”

Section: Indirect Downstream Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anaerobic digestion and digestate use: accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming contribution

2009

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Anaerobic digestion (AD) of source separated municipal solid waste (MSW) and use of the digestate is presented from a global warming (GW) point of view by providing ranges of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions useful for calculation of global warming factors (GWFs), i.e. the contribution to GW measured in CO 2 -equivalents tonne -1 wet waste. The GHG accounting was done distinguishing between direct contributions at the AD plant and indirect upstream or downstream contributions. GHG accounting for a generic AD plant with either biogas utilization at the plant or upgrading of the gas for vehicle fuel -in both cases the digestate was used for fertilizer substitution -resulted in a GWF from -375 (a saving) to 111 (a load) kg CO 2 -eq. tonne -1 wet waste. This large range was a result of the variation found for a number of parameters. In descending order of importance these were: energy substitution by biogas, N 2 O-emission from digestate in soil, fugitive emission of methane, unburned methane, carbon bound in soil and fertilizer substitution. GWF for a specific AD plant was in the range -95 to 28 kg CO 2 -eq. tonne -1 of wet waste. The ranges of uncertainty, especially of fugitive losses of methane and carbon sequestration highly influenced this result. Compared to the few published GWFs for AD, the range of our data was much larger demonstrating the need to use a consistent and robust approach to GHG accounting and simultaneously accept that some key parameters are highly uncertain.

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EU strategies and policies on soil and waste management to offset greenhouse gas emissions

Cited by 47 publications

References 4 publications

Environmental inventory modelling of the use of compost and peat in growth media preparation

Environmental inventory modelling of the use of compost and peat in growth media preparation

Composting and compost utilization: accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming contributions

Anaerobic digestion and digestate use: accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming contribution

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