Integrated Assessment of Environmental and Economic Impact of Municipal Solid Waste Incineration for Power Generation: A Case Study in China

Abstract

Municipal solid waste incineration for power generation is significant for reducing and reusing solid waste. However, there have been few quantitative studies on its environmental and economic benefits. The study on which this paper is based therefore conducted an integrated assessment of environment and economy on municipal solid waste incineration in China, from a ‘cradle to grave’ perspective using 1 tonne of municipal solid waste incineration as the functional unit. The environmental impacts of each month are also calculated to analyze the dynamic change throughout one year. The results indicate that the environmental impacts are mainly concentrated in marine ecotoxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, human carcinogenic toxicity, and human non-carcinogenic toxicity. Flue gas purification, waste incineration and transportation are the key processes, which account for 65.61%, 18.50%, and 11.93% of the overall environmental impact, respectively. Urea, activated carbon, chelating agent (EDTA) and diesel fuel for transportation are key factors. The life cycle cost is 54.51 RMB per tonne of waste, of which the process of flue gas purification has the greatest cost burden. When considering power generated from municipal solid waste incineration to replace electricity supply from the power grid, it achieves significant environmental benefits and the normalized environmental impact value changes from 0.85 to -12.19. The findings provide references for municipal solid waste treatment to mitigate the environmental impact and reduce the economic burden across the entire life cycle.

Keywords: Municipal solid waste, Incineration, Life cycle assessment, Life cycle cost, Environmental impact