Environmental Assessment of Municipal Waste Management Scenarios: Part II Detailed Life Cycle Assessments

Abstract

The European Commission’s Strategy on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste outlines why life cycle thinking is essential in the move towards more sustainable consumption and production. The importance of life cycle thinking is further highlighted in the Commission’s complimentary Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, in its Integrated Product Policy, as well as in the proposed revisions to the European Waste Framework Directive and the up-coming Sustainable Consumption and Production Action Plan. In 2004, following its international workshop and conference on life cycle assessment and waste management, the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) launched a series of regional pilot case studies in collaboration with representatives of the European Union’s new member states, acceding countries, and associated countries. The representatives selected, and provided, statistical data for nine waste management regions. The life cycle assessments took into account the situation around 2003 in each region and example management scenarios that achieve Directive compliance and beyond (ref. Koneczny K., Dragusanu V., Bersani R., Pennington D.W. Environmental Assessment of Municipal Waste Management Scenarios: Part I – Data collection and preliminary environmental assessments for life cycle thinking pilot studies, European Commission, JRC-IES, 2007). This report, based on a study carried out on behalf of the JRC by 2.-0 LCA Consultants, considers in further detail the waste management options for the island nation of Malta and the central European city of Krakow, Poland. The life cycle assessments use more robust data, apply cutting edge methodologies, and take into account the waste management costs. The resultant life cycle impact indicators provide a basis to compare the emissions and resources consumed attributable to each waste management option in terms of their contributions to e.g. different environment and human health burdens. One of the methods furthermore highlights how some of the trade-offs between environment, health, and the waste management costs might be partially considered in a single life cycle based cost-benefit framework, as a support to other decision- making information. The mission of the JRC is to provide customer-driven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of EU policies. As a service of the European Commission, the JRC functions as a reference centre o L B -N B -2 3 0 2 1 E N -C f science and technology for the Union. Close to the policy-making process, it serves the common interest of the Member States, while being independent of special interests, whether private or national.