Review of LCA studies of solid waste management systems – Part I: Lessons learned and perspectives

Laurent, Alexis; Bakas, Ioannis; Clavreul, Julie; Bernstad, Anna; Niero, Monia; Gentil, Emmanuel; Hauschild, Michael Zwicky; Christensen, Thomas Højlund

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2013.10.045

Cited by 585 publications

(287 citation statements)

References 238 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

254

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In fact, AD plants can be fed with a wide range of feedstock. The AD of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) [4][5][6], sewage sludge [7][8][9][10] and food waste [11][12][13] is by far one of the most rational solutions to manage this waste, this matrix is of the most used feedstock for biogas production: nevertheless, for what concern the agricultural and agro-industry sectors the suitable feedstock are several. Besides energy crops (e.g., cereals, grass, mischantus, switchgrass and sunflower) specifically cultivated, animal slurry and manure as well as waste (e.g., pomace, vegetable residues, tomato peel and skin, slaughterhouse waste) and by-products (from winery and distilleries, from biodiesel production, from cereal mill) of the main agro-industries can be digested [14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural anaerobic digestion plants: What LCA studies pointed out and what can be done to make them more environmentally sustainable

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Anaerobic Digestion (AD) has been recognized as a viable solution to produce renewable energy and to reduce global warming especially when secondary feedstock and/or wastes are used. Several LCA studies analysed the environmental performances of biogas production systems. The results of this review highlight that the goal, scope, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methodology, feedstocks and geographical regions covered by the studies vary widely. Most studies are based in Europe, several in China and few in South and North America and in Africa. To better highlight how the choices on the feeding mix, the digestate storage, the surplus heat valorisation as well as the plant size can affect the environmental performances of agricultural AD plants four plants have been analyzed in this study. The results suggest that the energy crops production and the operation of anaerobic digesters, including digestate emission from open tanks, are the main contributors to the impacts from biogas electricity. This entails that it is environmentally better to have smaller plants using slurry and waste rather than bigger plants fed with energy crops. Recovering heat waste as well as covering of digestate tank would improve significantly the environmental sustainability of biogas electricity, and particularly the global warming category. We are pleased to enclose the revised version of our original manuscript of our paper entitled "Agricultural anaerobic digestion plants: What LCA studies pointed out and what can be done to make them more environmentally sustainable" which can hopefully be published in Applied Energy.Many thanks to the reviewers for their comments; they helped us to improve the manuscript.We hope that the manuscript in the revised form is appropriate for publication in Applied Energy.On behalf of all the Authors, as corresponding Author, yours sincerely, Cover Letter Title: Agricultural anaerobic digestion plants: What LCA studies pointed out and what can be done to make them more sustainable Dear Editor, we would like to thank you for the reviewers' comments. We are grateful to all the reviewers for devoting their time to review our manuscript. As you can see, we have taken most of them into consideration to modify the paper. We hope that the paper in this current revised version can be accepted for publication. Below, we enclose an explanation of how we have addressed the questions raised. Reviewer #1The manuscript is working on the review of the environmental impacts of biogas production. It includes good results, an interesting methodology, and related to the scope of this Journal. I suggest to accept it after some minor revisions. Thank you for your positive comments and for useful suggestions.The authors should write about the difference between their study and the following research: * Hijazi, O., Munro, S., Zerhusen, B. and Effenberger, M., 2016. Review of life cycle assessment for biogas production in Europe. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 54, 1291-300. Done, we specified in the int...

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural anaerobic digestion plants: What LCA studies pointed out and what can be done to make them more environmentally sustainable

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Conceptual Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in resource recovery contexts, only a small proportion (≈ 10%) of MFA studies and almost no LCA studies are temporally-dynamic (Allesch and Brunner, 2015;Laurent et al, 2014). System boundaries in LCA studies are also frequently ambiguous, even though their choice can be more significant than uncertainties in input data (Laurent et al, 2014). A further important issue relates to the scope of analysis and, specifically, the bias towards assessments of downstream processing systems rather than waste prevention strategies (Laurent et al, 2014).…”

Section: Conceptual Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…System boundaries in LCA studies are also frequently ambiguous, even though their choice can be more significant than uncertainties in input data (Laurent et al, 2014). A further important issue relates to the scope of analysis and, specifically, the bias towards assessments of downstream processing systems rather than waste prevention strategies (Laurent et al, 2014). Examples of applications of LCA to reuse of resources do exist (Ardente and Mathieux, 2014;Castellani et al, 2015).…”

Section: Conceptual Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Fully integrated modelling for sustainability assessment of resource recovery from waste

Millward-Hopkins

Busch

Purnell

et al. 2018

Science of The Total Environment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

• We develop a multidimensional model for assessing resource recovery systems.• Social, environmental, technical and economic domains of value are fully integrated.• We propose a new typology for metrics better suited to integrated modelling.• We apply the model to a case linking electricity and concrete/cement production.• Interdependencies between domains and temporal dynamics can be modelled. G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C Ta b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o This paper presents an integrated modelling approach for value assessments, focusing on resource recovery from waste. The method tracks and forecasts a range of values across environmental, social, economic and technical domains by attaching these to material-flows, thus building upon and integrating unidimensional models such as material flow analysis (MFA) and lifecycle assessment (LCA). We argue that the usual classification of metrics into these separate domains is useful for interpreting the outputs of multidimensional assessments, but unnecessary for modelling. We thus suggest that multidimensional assessments can be better performed by integrating the calculation methods of unidimensional models rather than their outputs. To achieve this, we propose a new metric typology that forms the foundation of a multidimensional model. This enables dynamic simulations to be performed with material-flows (or values in any domain) driven by changes in value in other domains. We then apply the model in an illustrative case highlighting links between the UK coal-based electricity-production and concrete/cement industries, investigating potential impacts that may follow the increased use of low-carbon fuels (biomass and solid recovered fuels; SRF) in the former. We explore synergies and trade-offs in value across domains and regions, e.g. how changes in carbon emissions in one part of the system may affect mortality elsewhere. This highlights the advantages of recognising complex system dynamics and making high-level inferences of their effects, even when rigorous analysis is not possible. We also indicate how changes in social, environmental and economic 'values' can be understood as being driven by changes in the technical value of resources. Our work thus emphasises the advantages of building fully integrated models to inform conventional sustainability assessments, rather than applying hybrid approaches that integrate outputs from parallel models. The approach we present demonstrates that this is feasible and lays the foundations for such an integrated model. Crown

show abstract

“…Several dedicated waste LCA models have been developed [12] but general LCA tools can also be used. Several reviews have been published (e.g., [13][14][15][16][17][18]) describing a number of different applications. There has been a dominant focus on municipal solid waste (MSW) although this type of waste only accounts for a relatively minor share of the total waste in most countries [16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Waste management has developed in many countries and will continue to do so. Changes towards increased recovery of resources in order to meet climate targets and for society to transition to a circular economy are important driving forces. Scenarios are important tools for planning and assessing possible future developments and policies. This paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) model for environmental assessments of scenarios and waste management policy instruments. It is unique by including almost all waste flows in a country and also allow for including waste prevention. The results show that the environmental impacts from future waste management scenarios in Sweden can differ a lot. Waste management will continue to contribute with environmental benefits, but less so in the more sustainable future scenarios, since the surrounding energy and transportation systems will be less polluting and also because less waste will be produced. Valuation results indicate that climate change, human toxicity and resource depletion are the most important environmental impact categories for the Swedish waste management system. Emissions of fossil CO 2 from waste incineration will continue to be a major source of environmental impacts in these scenarios. The model is used for analyzing environmental impacts of several policy instruments including weight based collection fee, incineration tax, a resource tax and inclusion of waste in a green electricity certification system. The effect of the studied policy instruments in isolation are in most cases limited, suggesting that stronger policy instruments as well as combinations are necessary to reach policy goals as set out in for example the EU action plan on circular economy.

show abstract

Review of LCA studies of solid waste management systems – Part I: Lessons learned and perspectives

Cited by 585 publications

References 238 publications

Agricultural anaerobic digestion plants: What LCA studies pointed out and what can be done to make them more environmentally sustainable

Agricultural anaerobic digestion plants: What LCA studies pointed out and what can be done to make them more environmentally sustainable

Fully integrated modelling for sustainability assessment of resource recovery from waste

Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About