Life-Cycle-Based Greenhouse Gas, Energy, and Economic Analysis of Municipal Solid Waste Management Using System Dynamics Model

Duan Lu,Feixiang Zan,Guanghao Chen,Xiaoming Liu,Asad Iqbal

doi:10.3390/su13041641

Abstract

Sustainable municipal solid waste (MSW) management is a critical issue that requires planning in accordance with population growth, urbanization, and living standards. An evaluation that integrates system dynamics (SD) is newly built for identifying the interactions between social activities to predict future MSW generation. In this study, SD-based greenhouse gas (GHG), energy, and economic evaluations were conducted for MSW management in the Southern Tai Lake Watershed (STWL) area in China. The considered SD factors include the gross domestic product (GDP) growth, total population, population growth, MSW generation per capita, and MSW generation charges. The results indicate that the current MSW strategy (S1) does not perform well in GHG, energy, and cost evaluation, and the current landfill capacity will be depleted in 2022. Co-processing the landfilled waste with fresh MSW in incineration plants (S7) is the most favorable strategy, which indicates the current landfill capacity will be sufficient for the ash generated from incineration over the next decade. S7 also emits 1.5–3 times less GHG, recovers 2–3.2 times more energy, and obtains 1.3–2.0 times more economic benefits than S1 during 2020–2030. This study offers valuable insights regarding the dynamics of MSW generation and an approach to determine an optimal MSW management strategy for the future.

Highlights

Increasing population, urbanization, and living standards have become major environmental challenges to the sustainable management of municipal solid waste (MSW), which affects people worldwide [1]
In 2030, with of run is anfrom exception in to SDannual modelincrease was set to forThere
This study comprehensively evaluates the greenhouse gas (GHG), energy, and economic performances of alternative MSW management strategies by considering the interactions between social variables from 2020 to 2030 in the South Tai Lake Watershed (STLW)

Summary

Introduction

Increasing population, urbanization, and living standards have become major environmental challenges to the sustainable management of municipal solid waste (MSW), which affects people worldwide [1]. The latest World Bank report states that 2.01 billion tons of MSW are generated globally each year, and this value is predicted to reach 3.4 billion tons by 2025 [2,3]. Appropriate MSW management is a crucial matter for environmental and human health concerns and in terms of remaining a step ahead with regard to waste sustainability and circular economy [4,5]. CH4 generated through the decomposition of organic matter in landfills accounts for the third largest anthropogenic source of global CH4 emissions, which are strongly positively correlated with climate change [8].

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