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Life Cycle Comparison of Waste-to-Energy to Sanitary Landfill

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Renewable Energy Systems

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This entry provides a detailed life cycle assessment (LCA) of combustion vs. landfilling of post-recycling municipal solid waste (MSW) . LCA can be used to evaluate the environmental footprint of products, processes, and services. An LCA allows decision makers to compare products and processes through systematic evaluation of supply chains. LCA takes a “cradle-to-grave” approach, by including each stage of life for a given product or process, which includes the extraction of raw materials, transportation, manufacturing, distribution, use, and final disposal. LCA has been widely utilized to analyze different solid waste management alternatives [1–9]. In the USA, 220 million Mg (1 Mg = 1 metric ton) of MSW was generated in 2009, of which only 32% was recycled, and 13% was combusted with energy recovery [10]. Despite resource conservation efforts, over 50% of the US MSW is discarded in landfills . This number is significantly...

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Abbreviations

APCS:

Air pollution control systems

ASCC:

Alaska Systems Coordinating Council

BOD:

Biological oxygen demand

CAA:

Clean air act

COD:

Chemical oxygen demand

EGU:

Electric generating unit

FRCC:

Florida Reliability Coordinating Council

HDPE:

High-density polyethylene

HICC:

Hawaiian Islands Coordinating Council

ICE:

Internal combustion engine

LCA:

Life cycle assessment

LCI:

Life cycle inventory

LFG:

Landfill gas

LFGTE:

Landfill gas to energy

MRO:

Midwest reliability organization

MSW:

Municipal solid waste

NERC:

North American Energy Reliability Council

NPCC:

Northeast Power Coordinating Council

OCC:

Old corrugated cardboard

ONP:

Old newsprint

PET:

Polyethylene terephthalate

RFC:

Reliability first corporation

SERC:

SERC reliability corporation

SPP:

Southwest power pool

TRE:

Texas Regional Entity

US EPA:

United States Environmental Protection Agency

WECC:

Western Electricity Coordinating Council

WTE:

Waste-to-energy

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 109 T.W. Alexander Dr, Research Triangle Park, NC, 27711, USA

    P. Ozge Kaplan Ph.D.

  2. Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Joseph F. DeCarolis & Morton A. Barlaz

Authors
  1. P. Ozge Kaplan Ph.D.
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  2. Joseph F. DeCarolis
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  3. Morton A. Barlaz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to P. Ozge Kaplan Ph.D. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. German Biomass Research Centre, Leipzig, Germany

    Martin Kaltschmitt

  2. Institute of Environmental Technology and Energy Economics, Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany

    Martin Kaltschmitt

  3. Earth Engineering Center, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Nickolas J. Themelis

  4. Ormat Technologies, Inc., Reno, NV, USA

    Lucien Y. Bronicki

  5. Royal Institute of Technology, Electric Power Systems, Stockholm, Sweden

    Lennart Söder

  6. Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, School of Ocean And Earth Science And Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Luis A. Vega

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Kaplan, P.O., DeCarolis, J.F., Barlaz, M.A. (2013). Life Cycle Comparison of Waste-to-Energy to Sanitary Landfill. In: Kaltschmitt, M., Themelis, N.J., Bronicki, L.Y., Söder, L., Vega, L.A. (eds) Renewable Energy Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5820-3_409

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