LCA-IWM: A decision support tool for sustainability assessment of waste management systems

Abstract

The paper outlines the most significant result of the project ‘The use of life cycle assessment tools for the development of integrated waste management strategies for cities and regions with rapid growing economies’, which was the development of two decision-support tools: a municipal waste prognostic tool and a waste management system assessment tool. The article focuses on the assessment tool, which supports the adequate decision making in the planning of urban waste management systems by allowing the creation and comparison of different scenarios, considering three basic subsystems: (i) temporary storage; (ii) collection and transport and (iii) treatment, disposal and recycling. The design and analysis options, as well as the assumptions made for each subsystem, are shortly introduced, providing an overview of the applied methodologies and technologies.

The sustainability assessment methodology used in the project to support the selection of the most adequate scenario is presented with a brief explanation of the procedures, criteria and indicators applied on the evaluation of each of the three sustainability pillars.

Introduction

Despite the progress that the EU-15 have made, the volume of most of waste streams continues to rise. By 2020 the waste generation is expected to be doubled (EEA, 2005). The problem of waste strikes the large cities hardest, especially their highly populated zones where the opportunities for waste minimisation through, e.g., home composting of the bio-fraction, are limited and the lack of free space significantly restricts the waste management infrastructure. A poorly planned waste management system can cause serious nuisances for city dwellers.

At the time before the EU-enlargement, a large discrepancy among the (by then) EU-15 and regions in the implementation of waste policy could be observed. For instance, in the northern countries, on average 20% of waste was collected separately, while in the southern only 5%. Some EU-15 members (e.g., Germany) achieved higher recovery and recycling rates for packaging wastes than target values, while other countries, such as Portugal, Greece, France and Spain, appeared not to be making as much progress. An even more difficult situation in waste management existed in new member states. These countries underwent the process of harmonisation of their national environmental laws with the EU policy, and, in the following years, were obliged to fulfil a number of requirements to adjust to the European standard. One of the primary tasks was to develop waste management plans at the local, regional and national level, which in countries like Poland was planned for the period 2002–2010 (MOS, 2000). The other, more difficult task remained: their implementation. Large cities are confronted here with the most difficult problem, due to their infrastructure, demographic and social complexity.

The implementation of the national environmental and waste related laws, which have been harmonised with the EU Waste policy, can be achieved in many ways. The national experiences showed that some of the solutions can be more efficient and sustainable than the others (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997). Modern waste management presents a high level of complexity. Thus, the selection of a better waste management scenario requires many aspects (environmental, economic and social) to be considered. There was a need to develop a comprehensive assessment method, which enables identification of the optimum waste management option for a specific situation.

A common mistake occurring in the process of waste management planning is the inaccurate estimation of future waste generation trends. As a result, waste processing facilities (such as incineration or composting plants) with overestimated size and capacity have been constructed across the EU. The unforeseen reduction of quantities of municipal waste and changes in waste composition during the planning phase resulted in many facilities utilising their designed capacity only partially and thus operating at very high costs. Especially in the new member states and in the southern European states data about waste generation characteristics is lacking.

Addressing the above outlined needs, in 2002 the European Commission (5th Framework Programme) granted support to a research project: The Use of Life Cycle Assessment Tool for the Development of Integrated Waste Management Strategies for Cities and Regions with Rapid Growing Economies (LCA-IWM).

The main objective of the LCA-IWM project was to develop tools to support: (i) planning of new and (ii) optimisation of existing waste management systems in the European cities. The primary application areas are regions with fast growing economies, which are: (i) new member states and (ii) southern European countries. These countries had in common, that they are in a process of undergoing a rapid economic development, resulting in significant increase of waste quantities, while their waste management systems still require much effort to be adjusted to the state-of-the-art in Europe. However, the proposed decision supporting tools should, as well, be useable in any other European region, for the purpose of waste management optimisation and/or benchmarking.

The Chair of Waste Management of Darmstadt University of Technology acted as coordinator of the LCA-IWM project. The authors were not involved in all project results presented in this paper (most notably chapters 3.4, 3.5.3, 4.3 and 5). These results are presented to provide with a complete overview. More information on the twelve project partners and their contributions can be found in the project Handbook for Waste Management Planning and Optimisation (Den Boer et al., 2005) and at the project’s website: http://www.lca-iwm.net.