Technological assessment of waste value change: implementation of CE concepts for implementing loop economy

ABSTRACT

The Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) system has been used as a unit of study to apply the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. Kanjur waste processing facility Mumbai, India was selected for technological performance assessment. The paper analyses multiple strategies for managing the MSW and the comparison of strategies is done to study impact on Global Warming Potential (GWP), Eutrophication Potential (GW) and Acidification potential (AP), which are the critical impact areas of MSW processing. The scenarios included were transportation, material recovery, direct landfill with the recovery of LFG, composting of the source-separated organic fraction with landfilling and biomining. Landfilling and the release of LFG (Landfill Gas), electricity generation from LFG, flaring of LFG were other assessed interventions. The scenarios were modelled using the CML impact characterisation method. The results highlight that sorting, biomining, composting, landfilling with energy recovery has the minimal impact on the environment compared to strategies where direct landfilling was considered. On a life cycle view, the transportation of waste to the processing site caused a significant global warming impact and is a hotspot, which can be considered for impact mitigation. Initiatives like RDF reuse, leachate recirculation, LFG recovery, biomining are other circular practices that lead to a significant reduction in GWP, EP and AP.

KEYWORDS:

• Circular economy
• life cycle assessment
• municipal waste
• benchmarking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hema Diwan

Hema Diwan is as associate professor in Indian Institute of Management Mumbai, India. She holds a PhD in the area of environmental management and has also done her Post Doc from a project funded by IISC_DBT, Govt of India. She is a gold medalist and has earned various awards during her research work. Currently, she is active in teaching in the domain of corporate sustainability and ESG. She has also conducted training programmes on sustainability for leading Industries and Corporate Houses as part of outreach activities. She has research publications in international journals and also has book-related publications.

Juan Mandy

Juan Mandy is in the field of sustainability management, working on the modelling aspects of products and processes using the LCA methodology.

Jitender Singh

Jitender Singh is a researcher in environmental management.

Hitesh Kavasia

Hitesh Kavasia is a research scholar working in sustainability management.