Methods for the Evaluation of Waste Treatment Processes

Abstract

Decision makers for waste management are confronted with the problem of selecting the most economic, environmental, and socially acceptable waste treatment process. This paper elucidates evaluation methods for waste treatment processes for the comparison of ecological and economic aspects such as material flow analysis, statistical entropy analysis, energetic and exergetic assessment, cumulative energy demand, and life cycle assessment. The work is based on the VDI guideline 3925. A comparison of two thermal waste treatment plants with different process designs and energy recovery systems was performed with the described evaluation methods. The results are mainly influenced by the type of energy recovery, where the waste-to-energy plant providing district heat and process steam emerged to be beneficial in most aspects. Material recovery options from waste incineration were evaluated according to sustainability targets, such as saving of resources and environmental protection.

Chemisches Recycling für Kunststoffe: Status und Perspektiven

“…Die Netto-Einsparungen (Aufwa ¨nde -Gutschriften) liegen im Bereich von 1,0-1,3 kg CO 2 eq kg -1 [24]. Die thermische Behandlung von Kunststoffabfa ¨llen kann dem Recycling ebenbu ¨rtig oder sogar vorteilhafter sein, wenn die Verbrennungsanlage eine effiziente Nutzung der enthaltenen Energie durch Produktion von Wa ¨rme und Strom ermo ¨glicht und so fossile Energietra ¨ger bei der Strom-und Wa ¨rmeerzeugung substituiert werden [25]. Dieser Vorteil verschwindet, wenn sich der Energiemix in Richtung erneuerbare Energien vera ¨ndert.…”

Application of Material Flow Analysis to Municipal Solid Waste in Sri Lanka Special Focus to Urban Environment

“…This is based on the law of mass conservation. and is the widely used methodology in waste material flow analysis in most of the research (Allesch & Brunner, 2015: Gehrmann et al, 2017. It has been widely applied for environmental education, particularly in waste management as analytics to make decisions on various issues related to waste related analysis.…”

Resources From Recycling and Urban Mining: Limits and Prospects

“…It was shown that recovery of Zn is economic only under opportune circumstances such as extremely high Zn concentrations. However, any heavy metal recovery process at least avoids landfilling of otherwise problematic residues (Gehrmann et al, 2017).…”

“…Which treatment process is the best in view of resource recovery aspects and environmental compatibility is the subject of ongoing discussions. A variety of evaluation methods for waste treatment processes exist (Gehrmann et al, 2017). In a recent publication, four different waste management options -1) disposal on landfills, 2) treatment in mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) plants, 3) treatment in municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) plants, and 4) separate collection and individual treatment -were compared with regard to the potential of the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (Wünsch & Simon, 2018).…”