Full length articleAn emergy-LCA analysis of municipal solid waste management

- Four Municipal Solid Waste collection and treatment strategies are compared.
- Negative effects to human and ecosystem integrity are assessed based on emergy indicators.
- Higher source-separation rate would make recycling more beneficial.
- Source-separation affects the ecological and economic losses and emergy yield.

Waste management is a specific practice aimed at reducing the effects of waste materials on the environment and increasing material and energy recovery. The Beijing Municipal Solid Waste Collection and Treatment System has been slow to adopt new technologies capable to enable better treatment results. The aim of the present ecological-economic evaluation of different treatment technologies is to achieve the maximum practical benefits from investments and to ensure the minimum environmental impacts of waste flows based on variable source-separated collection and transportation rates. This paper compared four garbage treatment systems, including separate collection and transportation, sanitary landfills systems, fluidized bed incineration system, and the composting system in Beijing. Results show that as far as the Source Separation Rate (SSR) increased, the yield of recycled materials and sorted waste also rose. High SSR and Separated Transportation Rate (STR) could make recycling more beneficial: however, if more than one approach is applied, it is possible to organize the different steps in a way that minimizes costs and losses. A joint emergy-LCA method is applied in this study to assess the environmental impact of input and output flows and suggest process improvement. The integration offers a way to quantitatively and qualitatively assess costs and benefits, for aware and sound MSW management.