Improvement actions in waste management systems at the provincial scale based on a life cycle assessment evaluation

•LCA was used for evaluating the performance of four provincial waste management systems.•Milano, Bergamo, Pavia and Mantova (Italy) are the provinces selected for the analysis.•Most of the data used to model the systems are primary.•Significant differences were found among the provinces located in the same Region.•LCA was used as a decision-supporting tool by Regione Lombardia.

This paper reports some of the findings of the ‘GERLA’ project: GEstione Rifiuti in Lombardia – Analisi del ciclo di vita (Waste management in Lombardia – Life cycle assessment). The project was devoted to support Lombardia Region in the drafting of the new waste management plan by applying a life cycle thinking perspective. The present paper mainly focuses on four Provinces in the Region, which were selected based on their peculiarities. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was adopted as the methodology to assess the current performance of the integrated waste management systems, to discuss strengths and weaknesses of each of them and to design their perspective evolution as of year 2020.Results show that despite a usual business approach that is beneficial to all the provinces, the introduction of technological and management improvements to the system provides in general additional energy and environmental benefits for all four provinces. The same improvements can be easily extended to the whole Region, leading to increased environmental benefits from the waste management sector, in line with the targets set by the European Union for 2020.