Life Cycle Assessment of a Non-Hazardous Industrial Waste Treatment System

One of the most used tools for assessing the potential environmental impacts of waste management systems is Life Cycle Assessment. This tool is particularly useful when it is applied to landfill waste as it aims to estimate... [ view full abstract ]

One of the most used tools for assessing the potential environmental impacts of waste management systems is Life Cycle Assessment. This tool is particularly useful when it is applied to landfill waste as it aims to estimate the related long-term emissions of the landfill over an extended time period that takes into account the years following the landfill closure. The purpose of this work is to present the life cycle assessment of the most important production system of a multi-sector company located in the Taranto Province, namely a Non-Hazardous Industrial Waste treatment system. For the landfill gas modelling, data on the composition of the waste entering the landfill was used in order to calculate the amount of biogenic carbon that will undergo a biodegradation process. The time frame for the emissions modelling includes the thirty years following the landfill closure. More complex is the estimate of landfill leachate production for which simplified hypotheses were made. The life cycle impact assessment of the system analysed indicates that the waste disposal phase and third-party transport are the most impacting life cycle stages. The hotspot of the landfill management phase is represented by the atmospheric emissions of the uncaptured landfill biogas that contributes noticeably to the potential climate change due to biogenic methane emissions. The other critical processes of this phase are represented by the clay used to cover the landfill waste and the third-party leachate treatment. The approach followed for the application of this LCA is that indicated by the European Commission which entails LCA as a means to measure the environmental profile and burdens of an organisation. The results of the present work together with future ones of the LCAs of all the organization’s production systems, will be used to implement the Organisation Environmental Footprint tool to measure the environmental profile of the entire organisation and to improve it through the use of possible technological solutions for environmental impact mitigation.

Keywords: Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), sustainable supply chain, biogas and landfill leachate modelling, environmental impacts mitigation