Environmental Assessment of Paper Waste Management Options by Means of LCA Methodology

When solid recovered fuel (SRF) production and consumption maximize environmental benefits? A life cycle assessment

Solid recovered fuel (SRF) from non-recyclable waste obtained from source separation and mechanical treatments can replace carbon coke in cement plants, contributing to the carbon neutrality. A life cycle assessment (LCA) of the SRF production from non-recyclable and selected waste was conducted in an Italian mechanical treatment plant to estimate the potential environmental impacts per ton of SRF produced. The analysis would contribute to evaluate the benefits that can be obtained due to coke substitution in best- and worst-case scenarios. The avoided impacts achieved were assessed, together with an evaluation of the variables that can affect the environmental benefits: SRF biogenic carbon content (in percentage of paper and cardboard); transportation distances travelled from the treatment plant to the cement kiln; the renewable energy used in the mechanical facility. On average, about 35.6 kgCO2-eq are generated by the SRF transportation and production phase. These impacts are greatly compensated by coke substitution, obtaining a net value of about -1.1 tCO2-eq avoided per ton of SRF. On balance, the global warming potential due to SRF production and consumption ranges from about -542 kgCO2-eq to about -1729 kgCO2-eq. The research recommended the use of SRF to substitute coke in cement kilns also in low densely-populated areas to mitigate environmental impacts and achieve carbon neutrality at a global level.

Country-specific net-zero strategies of the pulp and paper industry

The pulp and paper industry is an important contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions1,2. Country-specific strategies are essential for the industry to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, given its vast heterogeneities across countries3,4. Here we develop a comprehensive bottom-up assessment of net greenhouse gas emissions of the domestic paper-related sectors for 30 major countries from 1961 to 2019-about 3.2% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from the same period5-and explore mitigation strategies through 2,160 scenarios covering key factors. Our results show substantial differences across countries in terms of historical emissions evolution trends and structure. All countries can achieve net-zero emissions for their pulp and paper industry by 2050, with a single measure for most developed countries and several measures for most developing countries. Except for energy-efficiency improvement and energy-system decarbonization, tropical developing countries with abundant forest resources should give priority to sustainable forest management, whereas other developing countries should pay more attention to enhancing methane capture rate and reducing recycling. These insights are crucial for developing net-zero strategies tailored to each country and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 for the pulp and paper industry.

Parametrized regionalization of paper recycling life-cycle assessment

Recycling is a commonly acknowledged strategy to reduce the environmental impacts linked to primary resource exploitation. Large regional variations can be observed in recycling processes' parameters, like efficiency, energy mix and treatment of rejects. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is widely used to evaluate the environmental impacts of recycling processes, but existing studies are neither harmonized nor sufficient to provide a comprehensive geographical and technological coverage of recycling processes. The purpose of this research is to develop an efficient and iterative approach for the parametrized generation of semi-automated regionalized life-cycle inventories that take into account technological and geographical variabilities in the recycling sector. The regionalization framework is then applied to create a parametrized paper recycling regionalization tool. This tool is used in the results section to compare the national climate change impacts of recycling three paper grades. Results show a significant global warming impact variability between countries for recycled graphic paper (0.36 to 2.25 kg CO₂-Eq/kg wastepaper recycled), newsprint (0.27 to 1.84 kg CO₂-Eq/kg wastepaper recycled) and corrugated cardboard (0.28 to 1.68 kg CO₂-Eq/kg wastepaper recycled) productions. A regionalized LCA of the international recycling of the mixed wastepaper exported from Quebec's (Canada) sorting centers is also performed with the tool and compared to the non-regionalized mixed wastepaper recycling process available in the ecoinvent database. Only nine midpoint ReCiPe impact categories remain environmentally advantageous compared to virgin paper production when applying the regionalization methodology, compared to sixteen when using the ecoinvent process, illustrating how regionalization can substantially influence LCA results.

Biodegradation of Paper Wastes by Freshwater Snails: Implications for Management

The different types of paper wastes constitute a major portion of municipal solid waste. The present study was aimed to justify the use of freshwater snails for the biological degradation of the paper waste and subsequent availability of cellulose from fecal matter. Three aquatic snails Racesina luteola, Indoplanorbis exustus, and Physella acuta were used to degrade newsprint, cardboard, and common writing paper as paper waste. The consumption of papers by the snail species was subjected to statistical analysis, and the results of Kruskal-Wallis test indicated a significant variation in the paper-specific consumption pattern (K = 181.762, df = 2, p <0.0001) and no variation in the species-specific pattern. Among the three types of paper used for the study, cardboard was consumed at the highest rate (4.655 ± 0.401 mg per day), and the per capita consumption remained highest for the snail I. exustus (2.253 ± 0.273 mg per day). The microscopic images and SEM micrographs of the consumed paper revealed prominent grazing and scraping marks by the snails. The disintegration and relaxation of the papers after consumption indicated that they were on the pathway to degradation. The traditional way of degrading paper waste includes physical, chemical, or microbial treatment of paper pulp. This study represents a novel approach considering the freshwater snails as model organisms for the biodegradation process. Considerable amount of cellulose was present in the fecal samples, which can be extracted and purified for utilization as potent raw material.

Sustainability Assessment of a Single-Use Plastics Ban

Governments around the world are introducing single-use plastics bans to alleviate plastic marine pollution. This paper investigates whether banning single-use plastic items is an appropriate strategy to protect the environment. Product life cycle assessment was conducted for single-use plastic and single-use non-plastic alternatives. The life cycle impacts of the two product categories were compared and scaled according to EU consumption of 2016. The results show that a single-use plastics ban would decrease plastic marine pollution in the EU by 5.5% which equates to a 0.06% decrease globally. However, such a ban would increase emissions contributing to marine aquatic toxicity in the EU by 1.4%. This paper concludes that single-use items are harmful to the environment regardless of their material. Therefore, banning or imposing a premium price on single-use items in general and not only single-use plastic items is a more effective method of reducing consumption and thereby pollution. The plastics ban only leads to a small reduction of global plastic marine pollution and thus provides only a partial solution to the problem it intends to solve.

The environmental benefits of improving packaging waste collection in Europe

Collecting more waste via source separation waste collection systems is an essential part of increasing resource efficiency, achieving European recycling targets and closing the loop in a circular economy. Huge variation in the capture rates of packaging waste (paper, plastic, metal, composite material and glass) exists in Europe, even between municipalities with similar characteristics, which suggests there is great potential to increase the amount of these materials that can be recovered. In order to assess the environmental impacts linked to higher collection rates, a Life Cycle Assessment model was built that considers the reduced need for virgin materials as the system's loops are closed. An extra 18 million tonnes of waste could be collected annually in Europe if best practice collection strategies were to be deployed, leading to a 13% reduction in greenhouse gas production associated with the packaging and packaging waste. Although high collection performance is crucial for efficient resource use, improving source separation waste collection systems alone will not be enough to achieve recycling targets; material losses must be reduced throughout the value chain, i.e. at the sorting and recycling stages. By evaluating the circularity and environmental implications of current waste management, it can be shown at which points in the system the most improvement needs to be made for each material in order to facilitate the transition towards a circular economy.

Substitution modelling in life cycle assessment of municipal solid waste management

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is gaining importance worldwide in guiding waste management policies. The capacity of co-products such as recycled materials and recovered energy to avoid primary production of equivalent products largely determines the environmental performance of waste treatment technologies. Estimating the reductions in resource use, emissions, and impacts enabled by this substitution of primary production is often the most influential and controversial factor in quantifying the overall environmental performance of a waste management strategy. This study aims to critically evaluate the modelling of substitution in LCAs of recovered material from municipal solid waste management systems (MSWMS) by answering two questions. First, to what extent is substitution modelling transparently documented in the literature? Second, are the substitution ratios justified to represent physically realistic replacement of one product by another? To address these questions, we performed a systematic analysis of 51 LCA studies on MSWMS published in the peer-reviewed literature. We found that 22% of the substitution ratios are only implicitly expressed. A significant proportion of substitution ratios is not justified (65%), while for the remaining 35%, justifications do not represent physically realistic substitutions. We call for more rigor and transparency, and we propose guidance for the documentation of substitution ratios, with the aim of reaching more credible and robust analyses. For the justification of a substitution ratio to be considered physically realistic, information should notably be provided concerning loss of quality, the function performed by substitutable materials, and the sector of use.

Assessing the Environmental Sustainability of Food Packaging: An Extended Life Cycle Assessment including Packaging-Related Food Losses and Waste and Circularity Assessment

Food packaging helps to protect food from being lost or wasted, nevertheless it is perceived as an environmental problem. The present study gives an overview of methods to assess the environmental sustainability of food packaging. Furthermore, we propose a methodological framework for environmental assessment of food packaging. There is a broad consensus on the definition of sustainable packaging, which has to be effective, efficient, and safe for human health and the environment. Existing frameworks only provide general guidance on how to quantify the environmental sustainability of packaging. Our proposed framework defines three sustainability aspects of food packaging, namely direct environmental effects of packaging, packaging-related food losses and waste, as well as circularity. It provides a list of key environmental performance indicators and recommends certain calculation procedures for each indicator. The framework is oriented towards the Product Environmental Footprint initiative and the Circular Economy Package of the European Union. Further research should develop a method to determine the amount of packaging-related food losses and waste. Moreover, future studies should examine the potential environmental benefits of different measures to make food packaging more circular.

Multiple data sets and modelling choices in a comparative LCA of disposable beverage cups

This study used multiple data sets and modelling choices in an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare typical disposable beverage cups made from polystyrene (PS), polylactic acid (PLA; bioplastic) and paper lined with bioplastic (biopaper). Incineration and recycling were considered as waste processing options, and for the PLA and biopaper cup also composting and anaerobic digestion. Multiple data sets and modelling choices were systematically used to calculate average results and the spread in results for each disposable cup in eleven impact categories. The LCA results of all combinations of data sets and modelling choices consistently identify three processes that dominate the environmental impact: (1) production of the cup's basic material (PS, PLA, biopaper), (2) cup manufacturing, and (3) waste processing. The large spread in results for impact categories strongly overlaps among the cups, however, and therefore does not allow a preference for one type of cup material. Comparison of the individual waste treatment options suggests some cautious preferences. The average waste treatment results indicate that recycling is the preferred option for PLA cups, followed by anaerobic digestion and incineration. Recycling is slightly preferred over incineration for the biopaper cups. There is no preferred waste treatment option for the PS cups. Taking into account the spread in waste treatment results for all cups, however, none of these preferences for waste processing options can be justified. The only exception is composting, which is least preferred for both PLA and biopaper cups. Our study illustrates that using multiple data sets and modelling choices can lead to considerable spread in LCA results. This makes comparing products more complex, but the outcomes more robust.

Material and energy recovery in integrated waste management systems. An evaluation based on life cycle assessment

This paper reports the environmental results, integrated with those arising from mass and energy balances, of a research project on the comparative analysis of strategies for material and energy recovery from waste, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. The project, involving the cooperation of five University research groups, was devoted to the optimisation of material and energy recovery activities within integrated municipal solid waste (MSW) management systems. Four scenarios of separate collection (overall value of 35%, 50% without the collection of food waste, 50% including the collection of food waste, 65%) were defined for the implementation of energetic, environmental and economic balances. Two sizes of integrated MSW management system (IWMS) were considered: a metropolitan area, with a gross MSW production of 750,000 t/year and an average province, with a gross MSW production of 150,000 t/year. The environmental analysis was conducted using Life Cycle Assessment methodology (LCA), for both material and energy recovery activities. In order to avoid allocation we have used the technique of the expansion of the system boundaries. This means taking into consideration the impact on the environment related to the waste management activities in comparison with the avoided impacts related to the saving of raw materials and primary energy. Under the hypotheses of the study, both for the large and for the small IWMS, the energetic and environmental benefits are higher than the energetic and environmental impacts for all the scenarios analysed in terms of all the indicators considered: the scenario with 50% separate collection in a drop-off scheme excluding food waste shows the most promising perspectives, mainly arising from the highest collection (and recycling) of all the packaging materials, which is the activity giving the biggest energetic and environmental benefits. Main conclusions of the study in the general field of the assessment of the environmental performance of any integrated waste management scheme address the importance of properly defining, beyond the design value assumed for the separate collection as a whole, also the yields of each material recovered; particular significance is finally related to the amount of residues deriving from material recovery activities, resulting on average in the order of 20% of the collected materials.

Life cycle assessment for optimising the level of separated collection in integrated MSW management systems

This life cycle assessment study analyses material and energy recovery within integrated municipal solid waste (MSW) management systems, and, in particular, the recovery of the source-separated materials (packaging and organic waste) and the energy recovery from the residual waste. The recovery of materials and energy are analysed together, with the final aim to evaluate possible optimum levels of source-separated collection that lead to the most favourable energetic and environmental results; this method allows identification of an optimum configuration of the MSW management system. The results show that the optimum level of source-separated collection is about 60%, when all the materials are recovered with high efficiency; it decreases to about 50%, when the 60% level is reached as a result of a very high recovery efficiency for organic fractions at the expense of the packaging materials, or when this implies an appreciable reduction of the quality of collected materials. The optimum MSW management system is thus characterized by source-separated collection levels as included in the above indicated range, with subsequent recycling of the separated materials and energy recovery of the residual waste in a large-scale incinerator operating in combined heat and power mode.

Life cycle assessment of a national policy proposal - the case of a Swedish waste incineration tax

At the core of EU and Swedish waste policy is the so-called waste hierarchy, according to which waste should first be prevented, but should otherwise be treated in the following order of prioritisation: reuse, recycling when environmentally motivated, energy recovery, and last landfilling. Some recent policy decisions in Sweden aim to influence waste management in the direction of the waste hierarchy. In 2001 a governmental commission assessed the economic and environmental impacts of introducing a weight-based tax on waste incineration, the purpose of which would be to encourage waste reduction and increase materials recycling and biological treatment. This paper presents the results of a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the waste incineration tax proposal. It was done in the context of a larger research project concerning the development and testing of a framework for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). The aim of this paper is to assess the life cycle environmental impacts of the waste incineration tax proposal, and to investigate whether there are any possibilities of more optimal design of such a tax. The proposed design of the waste incineration tax results in increased recycling, but only in small environmental improvements. A more elaborate tax design is suggested, in which the tax level would partly be related to the fossil carbon content of the waste.