Comparison Of MSW Incineration And Gasification By Life Cycle Analysis

Climate change is strongly linked to greenhouse gases(GHGs)emissions,an increasing number of tools have appeared in recent years to evaluate it,and the life cycle assessment(LCA)has proven to be an excellent tool for this purpose.Moreover,the world population growth has intensified the rate of waste generation,and it is necessary to evaluate the current Municipal Solid Waste Management(MSWM)situation to understand better which technology performs better according to local conditions.In order to do so,this study is organized into two sections;the first one is the comparison of two commercial plants,incineration grate boiler and gasification technologies located in China and Norway,respectively.The second section focused on the MSWM evaluation of some cities in Ecuador,a LCA study of the different stages involved in the MSWM of the Quito city and a projection of GHGs emissions was carried out with two scenarios.The methodology followed in both cases was based on ISO 14040 procedure and performed by the software Sima Pro 8.4,it was considered a functional unit of 1 ton of MSW;however,the specific methods were different,for the first case,it was used Impact 2002 and EDIP 2003,while for the second one,Re Ci Pe 2016.Among the results,the gasification technology performed better than incineration in most of the categories;thus,the suggestions for the stakeholders in China are developing feasibility studies in cities with a high waste generation rate and enhancing policies related to the sorting of waste.On the other hand,for the second section,it was found that the case of Ecuador respect of MSWM is quite similar to the current practices of Latin America and the Caribbean countries.Moreover,the inhabitants of Quito,the capital of Ecuador,generates approx.2000 tons/day,which are disposed on a sanitary landfill.From the LCA study,it was found that the production of biogas permits more avoiding of GHGs emissions than the other stages;the compaction and transportation of MSW had similar impacts,mainly due to the use vehicles,while the leachate treatment stage showed the most significant environmental impact,although the effluents do not exceed the corresponding limits of the Ecuadorian legislation.Finally,taking into account the different climate conditions in the natural regions and the waste composition of Ecuador,it is not possible to suggest only one technique for the management of MSW,but composting,anaerobic digestion are strongly recommended because the high content of the organic fraction,as well as enhancing the recycling as complementary options for the recyclable components.Conscious that this challenge should not be solved from only the technique perspective,some recommendations were reviewed from other approaches.