Environmental Impact Evaluation of Current Municipal Solid Waste Treatments in India Using Life Cycle Assessment

Venkata Ravi Sankar Cheela, Michele John, Wahidul K. Biswas and Brajesh Dubey
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Venkata Ravi Sankar Cheela: Environmental Engineering and Management, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, West Bengal, India
Michele John: Sustainable Engineering Group, Curtin University, Perth 6102, Australia
Wahidul K. Biswas: Sustainable Engineering Group, Curtin University, Perth 6102, Australia
Brajesh Dubey: Environmental Engineering and Management, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, West Bengal, India

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 11, 1-23

Abstract: An environmental life cycle assessment was conducted to compare proposed municipal solid waste treatment systems with the existing system in Visakhapatnam, India. Five waste alternative treatment systems, including open dumping of municipal solid waste (S1), landfill without gas recovery [LFWGR] (S2), landfill with gas recovery (S3), anaerobic digestion + LFWGR (S4), and incineration + LFWGR (S5). EASETECH TM was considered for assessment using ReCiPE Midpoint (Heuristic) world environmental impact assessment method. Global warming potential (GWP), terrestrial acidification (TA), freshwater eutrophication (FEW), marine water eutrophication (ME), human toxicity (HTP), terrestrial ecotoxicity (TE), freshwater ecotoxicity (FWT), and marine ecotoxicity (MET) impacts were determined for each option. The existing MSW disposal practice in Visakhapatnam city (baseline scenario, S1) has the highest GWP (1107 kg CO 2 eq.), which can potentially be reduced to 68.2%, 81.5%, 98.2%, and 94.5% by alternative waste management scenarios S2, S3, S4 and S5, respectively. Scenario S4, involving the use of anaerobic digestion of food waste and residues dumped in engineered landfill without energy recovery was found to be the option with the highest mitigation potential of most of the impacts, and it contributes to significant environmental benefits in terms of ecological footprints in a low-income country such as India. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to confirm the reasonable legitimacy of data used for the determination of the impacts.

Keywords: municipal solid waste; life cycle assessment; EASETECH; global warming potential; anaerobic digestion; landfill; incineration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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