Scenarios of Bioenergy Recovery from Organic Fraction of Residual Municipal Waste in the Marche Region (Italy)

Abstract

In the Marche Region (Central Italy), the residual municipal waste (RMW) is commonly processed in mechanical biological treatment (MBT) systems. In these systems, following a first mechanical selection, the undersize organic fraction from RMW (us-OFRMW) undergoes a partial aerobic biological treatment before being landfilled as a biostabilised fraction (bios-OFRMW) without dedicated energy or material recovery. Alternative us-OFRMW management scenarios have been elaborated for this region, at both present (reference year 2019) and future (reference year 2035) time bases. In the first scenario, the potential bioenergy recovery through anaerobic digestion (AD) from the us-OFRMW was evaluated. The second scenario aimed at evaluating the residual methane generation expected from the bios-OFRMW once landfilled, thus contributing also to the potential environmental impact connected with landfill gas (LFG) diffuse emissions from the regional landfills. The diversion to AD, at the present time, would allow a potential bioenergy recovery from the us-OFRMW equal to 4.35 MWel, while the alternative scenario involves greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions equal to 195 kg CO2 eq. per ton of deposited bios-OFRMW. In the future, the decreased amount of the us-OFRMW addressed to AD would still contribute with a potential bioenergy recovery of 3.47 MWel.

Volatile Organic Compounds From Green Waste Anaerobic Degradation at Lab-Scale: Evolution and Comparison With Landfill Gas

“…Moreover, a relevant amount of 10.53 million ton of GW was destined for landfilling in the USA in 2018 (USEPA, 2020). Even in territorial areas with a considerable level of separately collected MW destined for recovery, as in the Marche Region (Central Italy), where it was equal to 70.5% in 2019, the GW still represents, with food waste and fines, the largest portion of the residual MW, accounting for 30.8% as overall organic fraction (Boccarossa et al, 2021). In the representative Marche Region, both the mechanically separated outputs from the residual MW are destined for landfilling, either directly in the case of the oversize stream or following only a partial aerobic biostabilization in the case of the undersize stream (Boccarossa et al, 2021).…”

Lessons learned by modelling biogas production in an Italian state-of-the-art landfill active for 35 years

“…It accounts to the one-third of anthropogenic methane emissions at European level (Gioannis et al, 2009). Mechanical biological treatment (MBT) technology is widely applied in European countries to aerobically or anaerobically stabilize the organic matter still present in the residual municipal waste (Di Lonardo et al, 2015) with the aim of reducing the environmental landfill impacts (Boccarossa et al, 2021). However, the MBT output is often not completely stabilised, thus expressing residual anaerobic activity when disposed of in a landfill (Bayard et al, 2008;Carchesio et al, 2020;Tintner et al, 2012).…”