RELATION BETWEEN CO2 EMISSION REDUCTION AND WASTE COLLECTION POINT BY RESOURCE RECOVERY FROM WASTE

Abstract

This report presents calculations of the CO2 emissions during the transportation and processing of each class of recyclable materials recovered from waste of the operations in an office building. Emissions were shown to correlate with the rate of resource recovery from municipal solid wastes, and areas of waste collection points in buildings needed in order to recover resources were estimated. The findings are as follows. 1) Great variation was seen in the actual values of the rate of resource recovery due to variations in how the wastes were generated and in the methods of separation and recovery used in the buildings, but the mean of the rate of resource recovery in the surveyed buildings was approximately 60%. 2) Comparing with the volume of generated wastes for each class of recovered materials between before and after promulgation of the Basic Act on Establishing a sound Material Cycle Society indicated a tendency for the enforcement of these laws to suppress the volumes of each class.3) When the actual resource recovery of wastes from the monitored buildings reached about 60%, the CO2 emissions due to transportation and processing were estimated to be equivalent to the reduction in CO2 emissions during the resource recovery. 4) Targets were set for waste collection point area ratios of 0.4% and 0.35% for property areas up to 30,000 m2 and 50,000 m2, respectively to make it convenient to recover resources. These were roughly equal to the ratios found in the buildings surveyed. About 0.8% was estimated to be needed in property areas of 10,000 m2 or less. These findings suggest that the current standard was set by the municipalities regulation is too small.