Application of Life Cycle Framework for Municipal Solid Waste Management: a Circular Economy Perspective from Developing Countries

Abstract

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management has been a long-standing problem for many cities in developing countries. Urbanization, population growth, and excessive demand for resources caused significant waste related environmental and socio-economic problems in cities. Integration of policy decisions with actionable targets and management of economic and environmental extremes were common challenges to achieving sustainable waste management strategy. Circular economy is a concept that has been evolved with sustainable resource management perspective adopted in this study to support scientific decision-making process for urban planners and policymakers. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a framework to assess the environmental impacts of waste life cycle ranging from waste generation, transportation, treatment, and end disposal. This study used the LCA framework to evaluate the impact of MSW management of a selected local authority in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to identify the environmental impact of four (04) proposed scenarios in comparison with the Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario. Environmental impacts were calculated using global warming potential in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and short-lived climate pollutants. The results revealed that management of MSW within the local authority boundary by integrating recycling, incineration, and sanitary landfill (3:8:1 ratio) offered the highest positive impacts (− 121.84 kg of CO2 eq./ton) while BAU scenario caused the highest negative impacts (250.97 kg of CO2 eq./ton) in comparison with selected scenarios. Moreover, incineration, sanitary landfill, recycling, and anaerobic digestion contributed to emission savings and energy generation. LCA framework was used to identify the composition of MSW for suitable technologies as well as to evaluate the efficiency of existing management mechanisms within a local authority. Evaluation was used to understand the holistic picture of multiple management options to support policymakers in the decision-making process. This framework can be used as a benchmarking tool and bridging concept between the waste management policy and local action plans, which is an important step towards achieving a circular economy for developing countries.