Life Cycle Assessment Modelling of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing and Proposed Municipal Solid Waste Management System of Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Open Dumping of indiscriminate municipal solid waste (MSW) remarkably contributes to global warming (GW). Life Cycle Assessment modelling may be a useful tool for assessing the best waste management option regarding GW potential. The current study evaluates the contribution of an existing MSW management (MSWM) system to greenhouse gases in Gulberg Town, Lahore, Pakistan. This research also presents a comparison of scenarios with different waste management options. Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been used to conduct the study. EASETECH has been used for modelling. The short-term scenarios (STSs) have been developed to promote the thinking of integration of treatment technologies in the current waste management system within a few months. The results show that the major contribution to the total emissions comes from the anaerobic digestion of organic material from open waste dumps. Currently, recycling is the best treatment option for reducing the CO 2 -eq values in the study area. It was clarified that recycling is the best option for reducing the CO 2 -eq values, whereas biogasification comes in second in terms of savings and reduction. The integration of recycling and biogasification techniques would be a good solution.

Testing the Role of Waste Management and Environmental Quality on Health Indicators Using Structural Equation Modeling in Pakistan

“…The contribution of this study covers three aspects. First, to the authors’ knowledge, there was no inclusive research in Pakistan on household environmental and defensive behaviors in relation to waste disposal and studies that have generally investigated household’s defensive behaviors have been limited in Pakistan [ 15 ], although there has been some work on the environmental quality and adaptation for the poor sewage system in Pakistan [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. Second, the study is of great worth in monitoring, controlling and humanizing local peoples’ waste management behavior.…”

Strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from municipal solid waste management in Pakistan

“…Therefore, this study examines the management of MSW in Pakistan from the standpoint of GHG emissions as usually sustainable treatment of MSW results in comparatively less GHG emissions (Hillman et al, 2015;Syeda et al, 2017;Turner et al, 2015). Regrettably, there is a significant gap in the assessment of national GHG emissions from the MSW sector in Pakistan.…”

“…While, the studies on GHG emissions from handling of MSW have been reported by several other developing countries including the People's Republic of China (PRC) (Du et al, 2017), Brazil (Penteado et al, 2012), Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) (Babel and Vilaysouk, 2016), Malaysia (Abushammala et al, 2011) and others, research on GHG emission from MSW management in Pakistan is limited. To the best knowledge of the authors, only one study has been performed that covered only urban areas of Pakistan (Zuberi and Ali, 2015) and a few other studies have focused on city or municipality level (Batool and Chaudhry, 2009;Syeda et al, 2017). Hence, this study aims to provide an estimation of national GHG emissions from MSW management in Pakistan using the IPCC 2006 waste model (WM).…”

Application of a life cycle assessment for assessing municipal solid waste management systems in Bolivia in an international cooperative framework

“…The research will demonstrate the potential of using academic licensing in conjunction with local partners for implementing a preliminary assessment of MSWM systems in a first step towards improving the awareness and knowledge of stakeholders in low to middle income countries. The international scientific literature about LCA in developing countries (Coelho and Lange, 2018; Syeda et al, 2017; Yadav and Samadder, 2018) usually ignores three aspects of its use in these areas:…”