Life cycle assessment of municipal solid waste management options for India
Introduction
Rapid development in India resulted in a significant surge in municipal solid waste (MSW) generation, which has now become one of the significant environmental challenges. Increasing waste can be an environmental, economic as well as social problem if not managed properly, but it can fulfill several demands if it is considered as a resource (Li et al., 2019, Salihoglu et al., 2018). Inappropriate handling of MSW through open dumping, open burning and unsanitary landfilling creates problem to the public health and environment. This problem has acquired an alarming dimension and increasing day-by-day. In 2000, US EPA estimated that landfill emissions single-handedly contributed to a total of 36.7 million tons of anthropogenic emission of methane (Ren et al., 2017). Integrated solid waste management (ISWM) suggests sustainable waste management through “Cradle to the Grave” approach (Yay, 2015). It is a well-known fact that every stage in MSWM system, starting from the collection of waste to its final disposal including waste-to-energy, releases emission to air, water, and solid waste (Rajaeifar et al., 2015). These emissions further cause an adverse effect on human health and the environment due to which there is a delay in the approval of the public for the establishment of any new waste treatment and disposal facilities. Also, the decision-making in MSWM industry also needs an environmental impact assessment (EIA) to curtail the risks to both the environment and human health.
LCA is a computer-based tool used for the estimation and compilation of the input, output and environmental impacts caused along the product’s life-cycle. LCA approach has been widely practiced in Asian and European countries, namely, Italy (Arena et al., 2003, Cherubini et al., 2009, Cherubini et al., 2008), China (Hong et al., 2006, Zhao et al., 2009), Turkey (Banar et al., 2009, Çetinkaya et al., 2018), Thailand (Menikpura et al., 2013), Malaysia (Saheri et al., 2012), Singapore (Khoo, 2009). Srivastava and Nema (2011) performed a study in Delhi, India to compare the environmental effects induced by various MSWM systems. The treatment system comprised of MRF, incineration, composting and landfilling. The study concluded that the MRF has minimum impacts on the environment among all the treatment systems investigated earlier. Another LCA study was carried out by Bohra et al., (2012) who compared different treatment options, such as composting, refused derived fuel (RDF), AD, incineration and landfilling in Delhi, India. They concluded that the combination of composting, RDF, AD and landfilling are the best option concerning the environmental impacts. Babu et al., (2014) evaluated four MSWM systems, i.e., open dumping; landfilling without landfill gas (LFG) collection; landfilling with LFG collection, and bio-reactor landfilling for Bangalore and concluded bio-reactor landfilling scenario had the least environmental impacts among all the scenarios. Sharma and Chandel (2016) conducted a study in Mumbai, India for the comparison of seven scenarios consisting of different combinations of treatments, such as open dumping, MRF, composting, AD, incineration, sanitary landfill, bioreactor landfill. The study concluded that the scenario covering MRF, composting, AD, and sanitary landfilling had a minimum environmental impact. Yadav and Samadder (2018) conducted an LCA study in Dhanbad, which includes the comparison of three scenarios covering open burning, open dumping, recycling, composting, unsanitary landfill, landfill without energy recovery. The best scenario was recycling, composting and landfill without energy generation. Different studies reported that the impacts on the environment by various technologies vary from one region to another due to the difference in waste composition as well as social, economic and environmental variations, and as a result, the choice of treatment option might not be the same for all the regions.
Out of all the studies conducted, none was focused on the central region of India. The present study was carried out for Nagpur, the largest city of Central India. Currently, there is an increasing concern about MSWM in Nagpur due to the never-ending increase in the generation of MSW. Most of the wastes in Nagpur are disposed off at Bhandewadi landfill site along with composting of only 17% of the comingled MSW. The landfill site is subjected to frequent fires during the summer season and has been causing air pollution, odour nuisance and have an adverse health impact in the nearby residents. There was a major fire outbreak at the landfill in March 2017 (Arcadis Germany GmbH, 2017), which has raised questions about its operation. The continuously increasing fire outbreak calls for a management strategy that integrates concerns of environmental sustainability. LCA methodology can contribute to answering all these questions by quantifying the environmental impacts of MSWM system.
The present study aims to use the LCA approach for the comparison of environmental impacts by different waste management alternatives and to determine the most feasible management scenario with minimum impacts on the environment for Nagpur, the city. The scenarios include various MSWM options, such as MRF, composting, AD, incineration and landfilling. The impact categories, such as abiotic depletion potential (ADP), acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), global warming potential (GWP), human toxicity potential (HTP) and photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP) were analyzed. The findings of this study may be adopted in other regions with similar social and climatic conditions.
Section snippets
Study area and MSW composition
Nagpur city, also known as the orange city in India, is situated in the eastern part of Maharashtra State. The city is located between 78o30′ to 79o30′E and 20o30′ to 21o45′N latitude. Nagpur is situated at an altitude of 310.50 m above the mean sea level (MSL). The present study covers all the ten administrative wards of Nagpur city. The total area under study is about 227.4 km2 with an estimated 24.06 million population (Census of India, 2011) which generates around 1200 metric tons of MSW
Results and discussion
The results presented refer to the six impact categories, i.e., GWP, AP, EP, ADP, HTP, and POCP. Fig. 3 shows the results obtained for all the four considered scenarios. Additionally, the change in the rate of recycling was considered for the sensitivity analysis as presented in section 3.7. The six damage categories comprehensively analyses are presented in this section.
Conclusion and recommendations
The life cycle of the current MSWM system in Nagpur was assessed and compared with three alternatives. The results obtained based on GWP, EP, HTP, and POCP indicated that the combination of recycling, composting of biodegradable fraction and landfilling of the residues is the most suitable option. Sensitivity analysis also revealed that environmental impacts reduce considerably by increasing the recycling rate. To figure out a complete picture of the effects of MSWM, social (respiratory
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest concerning the research, authorship, and publication of this article.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support provided by Solid and Hazardous Management Division of CSIR – National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur and National Institute of Technology Karnataka for carrying out this research work.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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