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Life cycle analysis of management options for organic waste collected in an urban area

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Abstract

Different options for managing the organic fraction (OF) of municipal solid waste generated in a given urban area were analyzed by life cycle assessment (LCA) for different source segregation (SS) intensities ranging from 0 to 52 %. The best management option for processing the OF remaining in the residual organic fraction (ROF) for the different SS intensities was by incineration. Landfilling and mechanical biological treatment (MBT) of ROF gave higher impacts. Aerobic treatment alone or combined with anaerobic digestion (AD) for processing the source-segregated organic fraction (SSOF) led to relevant environmental impact reduction even if the difference between the two options was quite negligible. The weighted impact showed that scenarios using incineration always gave environmental gains, whereas there was a higher environmental burden with the scenarios using MBT.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the European Commission for supporting these activities through the LIFE+12 EMaRES project LIFE12ENV/IT/000411.

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Correspondence to Francesco Di Maria.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Di Maria, F., Micale, C. Life cycle analysis of management options for organic waste collected in an urban area. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 248–263 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3330-9

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