| Popis: |
Inappropriate waste management and poor resource eff ciency are two of the biggest problems which European Union is trying to solve by increasing recycling and reuse and reducing waste disposal. In these circumstances, decision-makers need to analyse which of the considered waste management systems leads to higher overall benefits. In this part of research, environmental impact of a waste management system is addressed. The aim of this study was to develop a framework for life cycle energy usage comparison of local waste management systems, which are timedependent, and enable easier decision- making. The framework for life cycle energy usage comparison of local waste management systems is developed by using Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) assessment to display total Primary Energy (PE) consumption for product production, taking into account all relevant front-end processes and provides a useful energy-related screening indicator for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Because CED correlates with the majority of environmental impacts assessments it can be used as an indicator for identification of environmentally preferable product and/or system. For this purpose, based on collected empirical data and literature research, estimation inventory data for location-specific conditions have been developed. Starting from the mandatory EU waste management legislation goals this study was performed to analyse and compare different MSW systems, which could be implemented and lead to the fulfilment of EU legislation goals, from the perspective of life cycle energy usage. As the path to legislation compliance is lengthy, this analysis examines time changes in primary energy consumption and return. For easier comparison and decision- making a Primary Energy Return Index is formulated which is the CED based index calculated by using the LCA- like framework. Results show that time and legislation dependent changes have great influence on decision making related to waste management and interconnected systems. Scenario analysis showed that material recovery scenario saved larger amounts of PE compared to energy recovery scenarios. PERI Index results showed diminishing returns of increasing efficiency of primary waste separation in later years. Even thou material recovery showed better results, by the implementation of AD results could be even better. Also, building of WtE incineration based plant made implementation of AD plant in the urban areas easier. Following this, it was concluded that the best results in the field of PE sustainability of WMS could be achieved by combining material and energy recovery of waste. |
