Sustainability Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste in Baltimore USA

Abstract

Sustainability assessment of municipal solid waste management requires a holistic approach in evaluating the impacts of current technology and processes. In this study, the sustainability analysis of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) incineration plant in Baltimore city was performed to determine its environmental, economic, and social impacts. The city’s major waste-to-energy generation plant has benefitted the city of Baltimore since inception till date in terms of waste processing, resulting in electricity and steam production for more than 40,000 homes and over 200 businesses. The life cycle impact of the incineration plant was analyzed using the Simapro life cycle assessment (LCA) software with the Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) database for correlation. The results obtained upon analysis show larger values of Global Warming Potential and eutrophication potential as 6.46 × 108 Gg of CO2 equivalence and 2.27 × 106 Gg N equivalence, respectively. These values resulted from the higher amount of fossil CO2 and NOx emitted from the plant. The acidification potential of 1.66 × 1017 H+ mmole eq resulted from the SO2 emitted by the incineration plant. The incineration plant exceeded the limitations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on NOx (150 ppm), which is detrimental to the well-being of people as shown by this study. Installing an improved processing technology such as a Selected Catalytic Reactor (SCR) can drastically reduce the NOx emission to 45 ppm. Life Cycle Assessment was confirmed suitable in evaluating the environmental impacts of the MSW-to-energy treatment approach.

Direct Synthesis of Eco-friendly Construction Material from Low-quality Sand via Sol-gel Method

“…The principles of lifecycle cost analysis were taken as the guiding principle, and the Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) method in the SimaPro software (TCO2 Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) was selected to conduct a quantitative study of the research case. SimaPro is widely used in construction industry applications [25,26,27] and the BEES method includes the assessment of global warming, acidification, eutrophication, ecotoxicity, smog, natural resource depletion, habitat alteration, and ozone depletion [28,29,30] . Therefore, the BEES method in the SimaPro software can be used to calculate the CO2 emission of sand-based building materials during the construction phase in a lifecycle.…”

Solid Municipal Waste Management for Sustainable Development

“…USA. Both private and public companies are involved in the MSW management industry in the United States [28]. Each state has several ways to finance the MSW recycling program.…”

“…Organic MSW is thrown into the garbage chute, the rest of the waste is sorted either by containers installed in basements, or special containers for various garbage are made in the garbage wire. If the residents of the house refuse to sort MSW, a fine is charged, which covers the sorting of MSW at garbage stations [27,28].…”

Environmental Impacts of Electricity from Incineration and Gasification: How the LCA Approach Can Affect the Results

“…An incinerator for MSW is generally composed by a furnace, an afterburning chamber, a heat recovery steam generator, and an emission-control equipment [5]. Incinerators work with many different types of waste, including MSW [6][7][8], products after their use phase (such as end-of-life tyres, [9]), solid refuse fuels (SRF) [10,11], industrial waste (IW) [12,13], and industrial hazardous waste (IHW) [14]. Beyond being a solution for the waste management, the incineration provides heat and can generate steam and electricity [15].…”