Evaluation of municipal solid waste options in Turkey: Scenarios for energy recovery, carbon mitigation and consequent financial strategies

Abstract

Solid waste management is a challenging issue in Turkey not only due to population and economic growths but its adverse environmental impact, financial problems and technological obstacles, as well. The detailed evaluation of solid waste options is significant not to end up with issues such as shutting down the plants and stopping the investments which may cause serious environmental problems as a result of uncontrolled landfill gas emissions. This research presents a theoretical model for energy recovery from the municipal solid waste (MSW) in Turkey, and the consequent carbon mitigation scenarios and financial strategies regarding the adoption of European Union acquis, respectively. The model predicts the population growth compatible with the baseline scenario of Turkish Statistical Institute data and the MSW generation for each city of Turkey between 2004–2043. The three scenarios, namely open dump, landfill and incineration, are taken into consideration for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy recovery from emissions and economics subject to the Turkish environmental regulations towards the progress of this adoption. The aim of the research is to fulfill the literature gap by proposing practical formulations and realistic models for the mentioned scenarios and considering the energy, economy and ecology nexus based on the regional characteristics of solid waste systems as a consequence of adapting the Turkish MSW regulations and management. Results show that the maximum potential of electricity production is estimated to be 3461–13,450 GW h (0.40–1.56 GW/annum) in the landfill scenario while it is 1572–8386 GW h (0.17–0.96 GW/annum) in the incineration scenario. According to the nationwide projections, Turkey will have consumed the electricity of 437 TW h and 2236 TW h by 2023 and 2043, respectively. While the landfill scenario would meet 0.40–1.40% and 0.15–0.60% of the nationwide electricity production for the interested years, respectively; the incineration scenario would supply 0.06–0.34% and 0.07–0.38% of the nationwide electricity consumption. The maximum total savings for the landfill and incineration scenarios would range from 35.2–66.7 and 32.7–64.5 billion $, respectively in a time horizon at which the total amount of wastes for the corresponding scenarios are equivalent to each other. It is stressed that the landfill scenario would be better for lowering the GHG emissions in case of proper emission control.