Developing a Sustainability Assessment Model to Analyze China’s Municipal Solid Waste Management Enhancement Strategy

Abstract

This study develops a sustainability assessment model for analysis and decision-making of the impact of China's municipal solid waste management enhancement strategy options based on three waste treatment scenarios: landfill disposal, waste-to-energy incineration, and a combination of a material recovery facility and composting. The model employs life cycle assessment, health risk assessment, and full cost accounting to evaluate the treatment scenarios regarding safeguarding public health, protecting the environment and conserving resources, and economic feasibility. The model then uses an analytic hierarchy process for an overall appraisal of sustainability. Results suggest that a combination of material recovery and composting is the most efficient option. The study results clarify sustainable attributes, suitable predications, evaluation modeling, and stakeholder involvement issues in solid waste management. The demonstration of the use of sustainability assessment model (SAM) provides flexibility by allowing assessment for a municipal solid waste management (MSWM) strategy on a case-by-case basis, taking into account site-specific factors, therefore it has the potential for flexible applications in different communities/regions.

Comparação de cenários de tratamento de resíduos sólidos urbanos por meio da técnica da Avaliação do Ciclo de Vida: o caso do município de Garibaldi, RS

“…Ripa et al (2017) Liège, Bélgica Avaliação de cenários de tratamento de RSU incluindo produção de energia e calor A substituição do aterro pela incineração reduz significativamente a emissão de poluentes e depleção de energia. Uma análise de sensibilidade mostrou a importância do contexto energético Belboom et al (2013) Zhangqiu, China Avaliar a sustentabilidade de cenários para a tomada de decisão para o gerenciamento de RSU O cenário com recuperação de material, compostagem e aterro sanitário é preferível ao cenário com incineração e aterro sanitário Li et al (2015) Cardiff, Gales…”

Review of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment and Potential for Its Adoption at an Automotive Company

“…Ingwersen et al [70] proposed to include integrated metrics, such as Ecological Footprint, Green Net Value Added, Fisher Information into sustainability assessment as they can address additional aspects such as carrying capacity (Ecological Footprint) and were already established. Li et al [71] on the other hand developed a sustainability assessment model by combining LCA, full cost accounting (FCA), health risk assessment, and AHP. Another two publications combined existing LCA studies on biofuels with information from different sources on investment and operation costs for different biofuel plants.…”

Review of Sustainability Assessment Approaches Based on Life Cycles

“…On the midpoint level, CML is most popular, followed by ReCiPe and the more recent ILCD method. Furthermore IMPACT 2002+ [183], TRACI [181], IWM-2 [172], and the Athena Impact Estimator [169,187] are used at least once. This reflects, on the one hand, the European focus of LCA studies (Asian authors also prefer the European methods) and, on the other hand, the fact that it takes several years for new LCIA method packages to be applied in publications.…”