Life Cycle Assessment Model For Municipal Solid Waste Management System Under Uncertainty

Along with the urbanization development, economic development and population growth, the volume of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated in China has a rising trend. In addition to directly influences the environment, MSW also released secondary pollutants during the process of collection, transportation, and treatment, which have negative and/or deleterious effects on water, air quality and soil and thus pose a risk on human health. Therefore, effective methods that can reduce pollutant emissions and evaluate the environmental impacts are desired. In this study, the optimization techniques, life cycle assessment method, and MSW treatment technology would be concluded and summarized systematically. Then, a life cycle assessment based interval-parameter programming (LCA-IPP) method is developed for the planning of MSW under uncertainty, which considers the factors of economy, environment and society. The developed LCA-IPP model is applied to a real case of Beijing’s MSW management, in which LCA is used to assess energy consumptions and six environmental parameters [i.e. CO2, CO, CH4, NOx, SO2, inhalable particle (PM10)], and is proved to be a systematic tool to quantify environmental releases in entire life cycle stage. Results associated with system cost, environmental impact, and the related policy implication are generated and analyzed. The results obtained can help decision makers and managers (i) identify desired alternatives for managing MSW flows,(ii) characterize fully the environmental tradeoffs associated with different treatment process alternatives,(iii) assess systematically environmental impacts in MSW,(iv) provide compromised schemes under an integrated consideration of economic efficiency and environmental impact under uncertainty.