Study on general industrial solid waste and carbon reduction in China: Coupling coordination model, life cycle assessment and environmental safety control

Abstract

The production of general industrial solid waste (GISW) which has grown rapidly along with the economy, has become a bottleneck that is impeding the sustainable and healthy growth of society and the economy. At the same time, China, as the country with the largest carbon emissions at present, has set a double carbon target, so China is faced with the dual goal of promoting the synergy of GISW pollution and carbon reduction. This paper systematically reviews the actual production data, literature reports, standard specifications, etc. of GISW and carbon dioxide emission in China, and processes the data with synergistic effect model. Both GISW and carbon emission in China show an obvious spatial aggregation effect, and the coupling and coordination index of both grows from moderate maladjustment to senior coordination stage, and the synergistic effect of different regions gradually increases. Selecting typical pollutants from key provinces analyzed based on coupling coordination degree, and the life cycle assessment was performed using SimaPro 9.0 software, the results show that fly ash is more destructive to the environment and causes higher carbon emissions than the other two GISW, with carbon emission equivalent being about 1.8 times that of tailings and 1.6 times that of EMR. Compared with the carbon emission equivalent of 1.12 × 103 kg CO2 eq in the preparation of traditional cementitious materials, the preparation of coal-based cementitious materials generates less greenhouse gases with carbon emission equivalent of about 1.06 × 103 kg CO2 eq, which has a significant solid waste consumption effect as well as carbon reduction effect. Meanwhile, from the GISW storage process, a disposal environmental safety control system is established mainly for heavy metals, volatile organic compounds and atmospheric pollutants by comprehensively referring to literature and standard specifications.