Life cycle assessment for solid waste management in Lebanon: Economic implications of carbon credit

Abstract

Solid waste management has witnessed much progress in recent years with considerable efforts targeting the reduction of associated impacts and carbon emissions. Such efforts remain relatively limited in developing economies due to inefficient management practices. In this study, a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach is adopted to identify integrated systems with minimal impacts and reduced emissions in a developing context coupled with an economic valuation and sensitivity analysis to assess the effect of varying influencing parameters individually. The results showed that the highest impact arises from landfilling with minimal material recovery for recycling and composting, while incineration coupled with energy recovery contributed to the least equivalent emissions (-111% with respect to baseline scenario) at a varying cost of −70% to +93% depending on the selected technology and the value of carbon credit. Optimizing material recycling, composting and landfilling with energy recovery contributed to 98% savings in emissions (with respect to baseline scenario) and remained economically attractive irrespective of the carbon credit exchange rate of 0.5-50 US$/MTCO 2 E. The sensitivity analysis showed that an improvement in landfill gas collection efficiency (up to 60%) can contribute to major savings in emissions (58%). The application of the LCA-based approach supports the development of integrated viable plans while quantifying advantages and disadvantages towards decision-making and policy-planning.

Life cycle analysis of potential municipal solid wastes management scenarios in Tanzania: the case of Arusha City

“…Most of the methane generated in a landfill is not captured resulting in high climate change and photochemical oxidant formation in SN-1 than in composting (SN-2) and anaerobic digestion (SN-3). Similar observations were indicated by Maalouf and El-Fadel [32], who indicated that methane emissions in a landfill are the major contributor for climate change and photochemical oxidant formation. Thus, diverting the organic waste fractions to composting or anaerobic digestion process would significantly reduce the climate change and photochemical oxidant formation.…”

Economic and environmental consequences of implementing an EU model for collecting and separating wastes system in Lebanon

“… a Laceco/Ramboll (2012); Maalouf and El-Fadel (2019b). b Data retrieved from Di Maria and Micale (2013) for a typical Italian city. LB: Lebanon; IT: Italy. …”

“… a Laceco/Ramboll (2012); Maalouf and El-Fadel (2019b). …”

Global municipal solid waste infrastructure: Delivery and forecast of uncontrolled disposal

“…Without interventions, it is expected that existing open dumps will account for 10% of worldwide GHG emissions by 2025 (Law and Ross, 2019). However, studies (Maalouf and El-Fadel, 2018b, 2019) showed that substituting open dumping or burning with proper waste management systems such as engineered landfills coupled with a proper landfill gas collection system, incineration, recycling, biological treatment, food waste diversion, and/or energy recovery can contribute to significant savings in emissions that can reach up to 24–95% compared to the baseline, depending on the tested system. Another study by Maalouf et al (2019) reported that the increase in the source segregation intensity with proper management of residual MSW resulted in significant savings in the climate change impact (reaching up to 20%) and stratospheric ozone depletion potential (about 55%) in a developing economy.…”