Abstract
Purpose
The majority of waste in many countries is still landfilled. This represents waste of valuable resources and could lead to higher emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) compared to energy recovered by incineration, even when the landfill gas is recovered. This paper aims to find out which option is more sustainable with respect to the carbon footprint (global warming potential) by comparing energy recovered from MSW incineration with that from biogas recovered from landfilled waste.
Materials and methods
Life cycle assessment has been used as a tool, following the ISO 14040/44 and PAS 2050 methodologies. Data have been sourced from the operator of the incinerator, the Environment Agency for England and Wales, the CCaLC and Ecoinvent databases. CCaLC v2 and GaBi v4.3 have been used for the LCA modelling.
Results and discussion
The carbon footprint of MSW incineration is −0.179 t CO2 eq./t MSW while that from landfilling is 0.395 t CO2 eq./t MSW, with both systems credited for energy recovery. The results are sensitive to the composition of waste, energy options chosen to credit the systems and the recovery rate of biogas. Increasing the amount of fossil carbon in the waste by increasing paper recycling between 40 and 80 % increases the carbon footprint of incineration by 9–20 %. If instead of the electricity from the UK grid, electricity from heavy fuel oil or coal is assumed to be displaced by incineration, its carbon footprint reduces to −0.51 and −0.35 t CO2 eq./t MSW, respectively. Increasing the landfill gas recovery from 53 to 75 % and its utilisation for energy from 35 to 50 %, reduces the carbon footprint of landfilling by a half.
Conclusions
The results indicate that waste incineration offers significant savings of GHG compared to disposal by landfill. Based on the total amount of MSW of 225,000 t/year considered in this study, MSW incineration could save around 129 kt of CO2 eq. per year compared to landfilling with biogas recovery, with both systems co-generating heat and electricity. At the UK level, diverting all MSW that is currently landfilled to incineration with energy recovery could save around 8.38 million tonnes of CO2 eq. per year or 1.5 % of the total UK GHG emissions. These savings can be increased further by recycling of bottom ash and non-ferrous metals. Incineration remains a better option than landfilling under all the conditions considered in this study.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ares E, Bolton P (2002) Waste Incineration. Research Paper 02/34. 9 May 2002. House of Commons Library, UK. www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/RP02-34.pdf
Arena U, Mastellone ML, Perugini F (2003) The environmental performance of alternative solid waste management options: a life cycle assessment study. Chem Eng J 96:207–222
Astrup T, Møller J, Fruergaard T (2009) Incineration and co-combustion of waste: accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming contributions. Waste Manag Res 27:789–799
Azapagic A (2007) Energy from municipal solid waste: large-scale incineration or small-scale pyrolysis? Environ Eng Manag J 6(5):337–346
Azapagic A (2011) Municipal solid waste management: recovering energy from waste. Chapter 10. In: Azapagic A, Perdan S (eds) Sustainable development in practice: case studies for engineers and scientists, 2nd edn. Wiley, Chichester
BSI (2011) Publicly Available Specification PAS 2050:2011. Specification for the assessment of the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services. British Standards Institution, London
CCaLC (2011) CCaLC tool and database. www.ccalc.org.uk
Cherubini F, Bargigli S, Ulgiati S (2009) Life cycle assessment (LCA) of waste management strategies: landfilling, sorting plant and incineration. Energy 34:2116–2123
Consonni S, Giugliano M, Grosso M (2005) Alternative strategies for energy recovery from municipal solid waste: part B: emission and cost estimates. Waste Manag 25:137–148
DECC (2012) 2011 UK greenhouse gas emissions, provisional figures and 2010 UK greenhouse gas emissions, final figures by fuel type and end-user. Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK. http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/stats/climate-change/4817-2011-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-provisional-figur.pdf
Defra (2007) Waste in the UK. Waste and recycling 2006, 27 September 2007. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London
Defra (2009) Municipal waste statistics—tables for November 2009. Statistical release. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London. www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/environment/wastats/archive/mwb200809_statsrelease.pdf
Defra (2010) What happens to waste. The environment 2010. www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/topics
Defra (2011) Annual waste statistics. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/files/mwb201011_statsrelease.pdf
DOENI (2011) Northern Ireland Municipal Waste Management Statistics, Annual Report 2010/11. Department of Environment for Northern Ireland. http://www.doeni.gov.uk/waste_2011r.pdf
Doka G (2009) Life cycle inventories of waste treatment services, vol 13, Ecoinvent report. Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories, Duebendorf
EA (2004) Guidance on the management of landfill gas. Environment Agency for England and Wales, Bristol. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Business/lf_tgn_03_888494.pdf
EA (2010) Permitting and monitoring data for MSW incinerators. Environment Agency for England and Wales, Leeds
EC (1999) Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste. OJ L 182:0001–0019
EC (2008) Waste statistics 2008. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Waste_statistics
EC (2010) Being wise with waste: the EU’s approach to waste management. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/pdf/WASTE%20BROCHURE.pdf
EC (2011) Climate Change. EU Publications Office, March 2011. http://ec.europa.eu/clima/publications/docs/factsheet-climate-change_en.pdf
Ecoinvent (2007) Ecoinvent database. Ecoinvent Centre, Switzerland. http://www.ecoinvent.org
Ecoinvent (2008) Calculation tool for waste disposal in municipal sanitary waste landfill (MSWLF) for Ecoinvent v2.1 (2008). Ecoinvent Centre, Switzerland. http://www.ecoinvent.org
Eriksson O, Carlsson Reich M, Frostell B, Björklund A, Assefa G, Sundqvist J-O, Granath J, Baky A, Thyselius L (2005) Municipal solid waste management from a systems perspective. J Clean Prod 13:241–252
Finnveden G, Johansson J, Lind P, Moberg Å (2005) Life cycle assessment of energy from solid waste—part 1: general methodology and results. J Clean Prod 13:213–229
Fruergaard T, Astrup T (2011) Optimal utilization of waste-to-energy in an LCA perspective. Waste Manag 31:572–582
IEA (2011) Renewables and Waste in IEA Europe in 2008. IEA. http://www.iea.org/stats/renewdata.asp?country_code=18
ILCD (2010) European Reference Life Cycle Database (ILCD), European Commission—Joint Research Centre, http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasetArea.vm
PE International (2007) Gabi software and database. www.pe-international.com
IPCC (2006) Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Volume 5. www.ipcc.ch
ISO (2006) Environmental management—life cycle assessment—requirements and guidelines. ISO 14044:2006. International Organization for Standardization, Geneva
Liamsanguan C, Gheewala SH (2007) Environmental assessment of energy production from municipal solid waste incineration. Int J Life Cycle Assess 12:529–536
Morselli L, De Robertis C, Luzi J, Passarini F, Vassura I (2008) Environmental impacts of waste incineration in a regional (Emilia Romagna, Italy) evaluated from a life cycle perspective. J Hazard Mater 159:505–511
Papageorgiou A, Barton JR, Karagiannidis A (2009) Assessment of the greenhouse effect impact of technologies used for energy recovery from municipal waste: a case for England. J Environ Manag 90:2999–3012
Parfitt J (2002) Analysis of household waste composition and factors driving waste increases. WRAP, December 2002. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/composition.pdf
Riber C, Bhander GS, Christensen TH (2008) Environmental assessment of waste incineration in a life-cycle-perspective (EASEWASTE). Waste Manag Res 26:96–103
Rigamonti L, Grosso M, Giugliano M (2009) Life cycle assessment for optimising the level of separated collection in integrated MSW management systems. Waste Manag 29:934–944
SEPA (2011) Waste data digest. Scottish Environment Protection Agency. http://www.sepa.org.uk/waste/waste_data/waste_data_digest.aspx
Veolia (2008) Annual performance report. Veolia, Sheffield 2008. www.ukwin.org.uk/files/pdf/sheffield2008.pdf
Wanichpongpan W, Gheewala S (2007) Life cycle assessment as a decision support tool for landfill gas-to energy projects. J Clean Prod 15:1819–1826
Welsh Government (2011) Statistics on waste and recycling. http://www.statswales.wales.gov.uk/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=10972
Acknowledgements
This project was funded by EPSRC within the CCaLC (grant no. EP/F003501/1) and PUrE Intrawise projects (grant no. EP/F007132/1) and this funding is gratefully acknowledged. The financial support by the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester is also acknowledged. The authors are grateful to the Environment Agency for England and Wales for supplying data for the MSW incinerator and to the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible editor: Jeroen Guinée
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jeswani, H.K., Smith, R.W. & Azapagic, A. Energy from waste: carbon footprint of incineration and landfill biogas in the UK. Int J Life Cycle Assess 18, 218–229 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0441-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0441-8