Regional Waste Management: Multicriteria Modelling

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to sustainable waste management. It summarises some recent work exploring the development of a multi-criteria optimisation tool for achieving sustainable solutions for municipal solid waste management systems (MSWMS). Aiming to provide a new methodological background for regional solid waste management modelling it takes into account spatial and temporal patterns of waste generation and processing, environmental as well as economic impacts of the system’s development with a particular emphasis on public health and biodiversity.

Three different approaches to the spatial-temporal analysis of the MSWMS are used together, namely a life cycle inventory analysis, which helps to identify emission patterns within the MSWMS, a multi-criteria optimisation approach, which helps to find compromise solutions among environmentally and economically preferred options, and a geographic information systems approach, which provides a tool for identifying waste management facilities, transportation environmental and social impacts; it also gives an analysis of environmental impacts on valuable ecosystems. A Russian methodology for calculating environmental damage was used to weight the importance of different sub-territories covered by the system as well as simplifying the analysis of emissions from waste treatment plants. The approach provides a new perspective for the analysis of municipal solid waste management systems on the regional scale. The principal novelty of the proposed complex MSW strategic management model is an integration of the different types of data: geographical, environmental and economic, using relational database technology.

Simulations using the dataset for Gloucestershire illustrate the performance of a simplified version of the model. Simulations were undertaken to explore the potential effects on the waste management infrastructure of introducing the EU Landfill Directive. The chapter shows how methodological synthesis and a systems perspective give useful support to the decision-maker regarding potential development paths and trade-offs between the economic and environmental performance of a proposed waste management system.

Appendices

Appendix 1 The List of Emission Coefficients

Sector of the ecosystem	Emission type	Recycling	Incineration	Landfilling	Damage coefficients
Air	Particulates	0.00327	0.00002	0	2.7
Air	CO	0.00228	0.0004	3.125E–06	0.4
Air	CO2	0	1.1293	0.2209825	0.4
Air	CH4	0	0	0.098215	0.7
Air	NOx	0.00231	0.0016	0	16.5
Air	N2O	0.000053	0	0	30
Air	SOx	0.003947	0.0003	0	20
Air	HCl	0.0000033	0.0001	1.625E–05	20
Air	HF	5E–09	0	3.25E–06	500
Air	H2S	0.000012	0	0.00005	500
Air	HC	0.001692	0.0001	0.0005	20
Air	Chlor. HC	0	0.0001	8.75E–06	50
Air	Dioxins/furans	0	5E–13	0	50,000
Air	NH3	0.0000004	0	0	28.5
Air	As	0	0.0000025	0	500
Air	Cd	0	0.0000005	1.4E–09	500
Air	Cr	0	0.0000063	1.65E–10	1670
Air	Cu	0	0.0000063	0	500
Air	Pb	0	0.0000063	1.275E–09	5000
Air	Hg	3E–09	0.0000005	1.025E–11	5000
Air	Ni	0	0.00000025	0	500
Air	Zn	0	0.00000063	1.875E–08	500
Air	Landfill gas (250 nm3/t) generation (t/t)	0	0	250	0
Water	BOD	0.00239	0	0.0004751	5
Water	COD	0.02084	0	0.0004751	2
Water	Sus. sol.	0	0	0.000015	0.15
Water	TOG	0.000004	0	0.0000003	50
Water	AOX	0.0000025	0	0.0000003	1000
Water	Chlor. HCs	0	0	1.545E–07	0
Water	Dioxins/furans	0	0	4.8E–14	0
Water	Phenol	0	0	5.7E–08	0
Water	NH4	4.47E–07	0	0.0000315	1
Water	Tot. metals	0	0	1.442E–05	0
Water	As	0	0	2.1E–09	90
Water	Cd	0	0	2.1E–09	250
Water	Cr	0	0	9E–09	550
Water	Cu	0	0	8.1E–09	550
Water	Fe	0	0	1.425E–05	1
Water	Pb	0	0	9.45E–09	11
Water	Hg	0	0	9E–11	15,000
Water	Ni	0	0	2.55E–08	90
Water	Zn	0	0	1.02E–07	90
Water	Cl	0.000011	0	0.0000885	550
Water	F	9.7E–07	0	5.85E–08	550
Water	NO3	0	0	0	0.2
Water	S−	0.000006	0	0	550

Appendix 2 Types of Environmentally Sensitive Areas Taken into Account by the Model

AONB (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) – the areas protected by the Government of the UK since 1949 “National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act”. The main goal of the designation AONB is preservation of the natural beauty of the landscape, and recreational use is not a major goal here and is permitted only to the extent that such use is in accordance with the preservation of natural beauty and the needs of agriculture, forestry and other spheres of regional development as well as the economic and social interest of local communities. Such areas number 41 in 2002 – they cover approximately 15% of the territory of England and Wales.

SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) – the land designated as such according to the 1981 “Wildlife and Countryside Act” (UK) (as amended).

NNR (National Nature Reserves) – lands designated according to the “National Parks and the Access to the Countryside Act” of 1949 (UK).

SAC (Special Areas of Conservation) – lands, whose status is drawn in the EC Directive 92/43/EEC on Conservation of the natural environments, wild fauna and flora. The data acquired have a status “candidate”.

SPA (Special Protection Areas) – lands, classified according to the EC Directive 79/409 on the preservation of wild birds. The data acquired has the status “classified”.

RAMSAR (unique wetland complexes) – the land, which has a status of the Wetlands of International Importance according to the Ramsar convention. The Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty, which provides a framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. There are presently 138 Contracting Parties to the Convention, with 1364.30 wetland sites, totalling 119.6 million hectares, designated for inclusion in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance.

Appendix 3 Data Requirements

The dynamic spatial ecological–economic model of the MSWMS built here links different types of data: GIS data sets, environmental impact information, economic information, specific waste related information, time information.

The required GIS data sets include:

• County, district and ward boundaries;

• General purpose layers: rivers and waterways, motorways, urbanised areas;

• Population density within wards;

• Areas of ecological significance: Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSI), National Nature Reserves (NNR), Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), Special Protection Areas (SPA);

• Sites of existing and proposed waste management facilities;

• Distances between the points in question (between waste treatment plants and centroids of the chosen population areas), other characteristics of transport routes.

The environmental impact information needed will consist of:

• Emission coefficients of waste treatment by different technologies (recycling, RDF, landfilling, etc.), taking into account the analysed types of waste (paper, glass, etc.) and the list of substances of interest;

• Emission coefficients of using different types of fuel for transporting waste;

• Coefficients of environmental harm from different substances emitted into air and water according to Russian environmental damage estimation methodology;

• Expert weighting of relative importance of the environmentally sensitive areas examined with respect to placing waste treatment plants near them.

Economic information comprises:

• Costs of processing different types of waste by various technologies;

• Investment costs for building new waste processing plants;

• Transportation costs;

• Prices of recycled materials and energy derived from waste.

Specific waste related information:

• Types of waste under consideration;

• Respective technologies used for processing each of the types of waste;

• Waste composition in various districts;

• Sorting and collection information.

Time related information:

• Timescale of the model (number of periods under consideration, length of periods);

• Impacts which could differ over time (e.g. gaseous emissions from landfill). Time factor in economic decisions (discount factor).