Abstract
The US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) launched the Resource Conservation Challenge (RCC) in 2002 to help reduce waste and move towards more sustainable resource consumption. The objective of the RCC is to help communities, industries, and the public think in terms of materials management rather than waste disposal. Reducing cost, finding more efficient and effective strategies to manage municipal waste, and thinking in terms of materials management requires a holistic approach that considers life-cycle environmental tradeoffs. The US EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory has led the development of a municipal solid waste decision support tool (MSW-DST). The computer software can be used to calculate life-cycle environmental tradeoffs and full costs of different waste management or materials recovery programs. The environmental methodology is based on the use of life-cycle assessment and the cost methodology is based on the use of full-cost accounting. Life-cycle inventory (LCI) environmental impacts and costs are calculated from the point of collection, handling, transport, treatment, and disposal. For any materials that are recovered for recycling, offsets are calculated to reflect potential emissions savings from use of virgin materials. The use of the MSW-DST provides a standardized format and consistent basis to compare alternatives. This paper provides an illustration of how the MSW-DST can be used by evaluating ten management strategies for a hypothetical medium-sized community to compare the life-cycle environmental and cost tradeoffs. The LCI results from the MSW-DST are then used as inputs into another US EPA tool, the Tool for the reduction and assessment of chemical and other environmental impacts, to convert the LCI results into impact indicators. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how the MSW-DST can be used to identify and balance multiple criteria (costs and environmental impacts) when evaluating options for materials and waste management. This type of approach is needed in identifying strategies that lead to reduced waste and more sustainable resource consumption. This helps to meet the goals established in the US EPA’s Resource Conservation Challenge.
Highlights
Introduction and backgroundThe need for credible and science-based information for making more informed waste management decisions precipitated the development of a decision-support tool for municipal waste
The resource conservation challenge (RCC) was launched in 2002 to help the US move away from solid waste and think more in terms of ‘‘materials’’ management
When the rate of recycling is reduced to 10% in Scenario 1, the cost increases. This suggests that there are cost benefits of increasing recycling levels past 10% but diminishing returns somewhere in the 20–30% range
Summary
The need for credible and science-based information for making more informed waste management decisions precipitated the development of a decision-support tool for municipal waste. Often decision makers are faced with conflicting and incomplete information that can have major economic and environmental implications. In the US, more than 214 million metric tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) was generated in 2003 and more than US$40 billion was spent on its management (US EPA, 2003a). Finding more efficient options can help reduce cost and reduce environmental burdens. The US EPA recognizes the need for finding flexible, yet protective, ways to conserve national resources. The resource conservation challenge (RCC) was launched in 2002 to help the US move away from solid waste and think more in terms of ‘‘materials’’ management
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