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Application of processed organic municipal solid waste on agricultural land – a scenario analysis

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Source separation, composting and anaerobic digestion, with associated land application, are increasingly being considered as alternative waste management strategies to landfilling and incineration of municipal solid waste (MSW). Environmental life cycle assessments are a useful tool in political decision-making about waste management strategies. However, due to the diversity of processed organic MSW and the situations in which it can be applied, the environmental impacts of land application are very hard to determine by experimental means. In the current study, we used the agroecosystem model Daisy to simulate a range of different scenarios representing different geographical areas, farm and soil types under Danish conditions and legislation. Generally, the application of processed organic MSW resulted in increased emissions compared with the corresponding standard scenarios, but with large differences between scenarios. Emission coefficients for nitrogen leaching to the groundwater ranged from 0.03 to 0.87, while those for nitrogen lost to surface waters through tile drains ranged from 0 to 0.30. Emission coefficients for N2O formation ranged from 0.013 to 0.022 and for ammonia volatilization from 0.016 to 0.11. These estimates are within reasonable range of observed values under similar conditions. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis showed that the estimates were not very sensitive to the mineralization dynamics of the processed organic MSW. The results show that agroecosystem models can be powerful tools to estimate the environmental impacts of land application of processed MSW under different conditions. Despite this, agroecosystem models have only been used to a very limited degree for this purpose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Sciences, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Thorvaldsensvej 40, DK-1871, Frederiksberg C, Denmark

    Sander Bruun, Jakob Magid & Lars S. Jensen

  2. Environment and Resources, Technical University of Denmark, DTU Building 115, DK-2800, Lyngby, Denmark

    Trine Lund Hansen & Thomas H. Christensen

Authors
  1. Sander Bruun
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  2. Trine Lund Hansen
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  3. Thomas H. Christensen
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  4. Jakob Magid
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  5. Lars S. Jensen
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Correspondence to Sander Bruun.

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Bruun, S., Hansen, T.L., Christensen, T.H. et al. Application of processed organic municipal solid waste on agricultural land – a scenario analysis. Environ Model Assess 11, 251–265 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10666-005-9028-0

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