Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a Tool of Sustainable Design for Waste Management: Six Italian Case Studies
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an environmental management tool that is being used widely as a decision making tool and it can be applied in process selection, design and optimisation as a tool for identifying clean technologies. In the definition of LCA, the term ‘product’ includes non only product systems but can also include service system. In particular, LCA applied to waste management system can assist decision makers in the evaluation of different strategies for sustainable integrated solid waste management system. In the present work the results of LCA method, based on the ISO 14040 series of standards, applied to waste collection, transfer and disposal service in sanitary landfills, composting and incineration plants is presented. Specific data were collected on six plants located in northern Italy during a campaign from 2000 to 2005. The studied landfills are managed with different technologies as concerns waste pre-treatment and leachate or biogas treatment. In the selection and composting plant, waste are separated in a dry fraction to be sent to the production of RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel) and in a wet fraction that is biologically treated. The incineration plant uses RDF fuel to produce electricity. LCA is performed considering resources use and pollutant emissions expressed as potential environmental impact (Global Warming Potential, Acidification, Ozone depletion, Photochemical oxidant formation, Eutrophication). The comparison of the LCA results obtained for the different case studies shows that the best practicable option that benefits the environment as a whole must be identified and chosen in the LCA context.