International expert group on Life Cycle assessment for integrated waste management

Coleman, Terry; Masoni, Paolo; Dryer, Allan; McDougall, Forbes R

doi:10.1007/bf02978465

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…A first step towards amending the restrictions imposed by a static assumption with regard to the waste quantity, is to relate the study not only to the composition of the waste but also to the waste quantity (Coleman et al, 2003). This can be made by changing the functional unit to the annual quantity of waste generated in a geographical area.…”

Section: Amendmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What life-cycle assessment does and does not do in assessments of waste management

et al. 2007

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Section: Amendmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What life-cycle assessment does and does not do in assessments of waste management

et al. 2007

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“…Traditional product LCAs can play an important role in evaluating the net environmental performance of WPAs and are pursued to "optimise a specific product life cycle" (Coleman et al 2003). They can be used to estimate the differences in the environmental emissions or impacts between product systems, one generating less waste than the other, per unit of functional output supplied.…”

Section: The Traditional Product Lcamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They can be used to estimate the differences in the environmental emissions or impacts between product systems, one generating less waste than the other, per unit of functional output supplied. A product system, which is a "collection of unit processes with elementary and product flows, performing one or more defined functions, and which models the life cycle of a product" (ISO 2006), commonly includes raw material extraction, product manufacture, distribution, use, and disposal (Coleman et al 2003). A product LCA addresses the waste management stage only for the product studied and does not account for the potential effects of the removal or reduction in size of a waste stream on the entire MSW management system.…”

Section: The Traditional Product Lcamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the LCA of MSW management and the theme of waste prevention have tended to remain isolated from one another in the published literature. Exceptions include Coleman et al (2003); Ekvall et al (2007) and Olofsson et al (2004), which allude to the potential for LCAs of MSW to be capable of evaluating waste prevention activities (WPAs) along with waste treatments. The apparent aversion to considering waste prevention as a form of waste management in LCAs of MSW could perhaps be attributable to the difficulty in answering the question: "Can one manage waste that has not been generated?"…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…the infrastructure system for managing a given amount and composition of waste" (Coleman et al 2003) and often used to evaluate the validity of the waste hierarchy in identifying those waste management techniques with the lowest environmental emissions and impacts. Waste prevention and product reuse, the first two components of the waste hierarchy, respectively, are usually omitted from these evaluations (Ekvall et al 2007).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The incorporation of waste prevention activities into life cycle assessments of municipal solid waste management systems: methodological issues

Cleary

2010

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Background, aim, and scope Municipal solid waste (MSW) management organizations commonly address both waste treatment and diversion activities in their management plans, yet the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) to MSW rarely incorporates the effects of waste prevention activities (WPAs) in an explicit manner. The primary objective of this paper is to further develop the methodological options for attributional LCAs of MSW to address waste prevention, including product reuse. Main features This article introduces the waste management and prevention (WasteMAP) LCA, a conceptual model that applies system expansion to generate a hybrid of the traditional product and waste LCA. The WasteMAP LCA, unlike the traditional LCA of MSW, can be used to compare functionally equivalent MSW management scenarios incorporating both treatment and prevention. This functional equivalence necessitates that waste prevention takes place through dematerialization. This form of WPA is analogous to waste management techniques such as landfilling in that it does not affect the functional output (product services) of MSW-generating product systems. Results Integral to the WasteMAP LCA is the requirement that the sum of the MSW managed through treatment and prevention, and the level of consumption of product services contributing to MSW generation, are identical for each scenario. A partial abandonment of the zero-burden assumption is also required. Consequently, product life cycles associated with WPAs, excluding the waste treatment stages, comprise the 'upstream' component of the system boundary, while the 'downstream' component encompasses the waste treatment life cycle. WasteMAP also possesses primary and secondary functional units, with the former accounting for the amount of waste managed, and the latter depicting the product services provided by the product systems responsible for the waste targeted for prevention. Discussion The WasteMAP LCA method can be used to identify in the results the burdens and avoided burdens attributed to waste prevention, recycling, biological and thermal treatments, as well as landfilling, within a particular MSW management system. This method also distinguishes itself through its ability to evaluate scenarios that target the prevention of particular waste streams to obtain downstream efficiency gains for the management of all waste materials. Conclusions An attributional LCA of MSW can be applied to a wider array of possible waste management scenarios, including those with waste prevention, by expanding the system boundary, and in the case of waste prevention through dematerialization, by introducing an additional type of functional unit.

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The UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative

Sonnemann

Valdivia

2014

LCA Compendium – The Complete World of Life Cycle Assessment

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International expert group on Life Cycle assessment for integrated waste management

Cited by 13 publications

References 1 publication

What life-cycle assessment does and does not do in assessments of waste management

What life-cycle assessment does and does not do in assessments of waste management

The incorporation of waste prevention activities into life cycle assessments of municipal solid waste management systems: methodological issues

The UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative

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