Material flow and environmental performance of the source segregated biowaste composting system

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is performed to investigate the environmental impacts of two alternative approaches in a biowaste management system. The system inventory is based on actual data and on-site sampling for two consecutive years at the mechanical and biological treatment (MBT) facility at the prefecture of Chania (Greece). The facility pertains as MBT for household waste and material recycling (MR) for the recyclable fractions in two different process lines. The mass balances and environmental performance are assessed from waste generation to end-use. The LCA and ReCiPe 2016 methodology estimate the endpoint environmental impacts on human health, ecosystem quality and resource scarcity. The results show that biowaste source segregation in an integrated waste management system not only significantly benefits its recoverability potential it also improves its environmental performance. Impacts on human health (HH) have reduced by 4.6 times, on freshwater ecosystem quality (EQf) by 6.3 times and resource scarcity (RS) usage by 2.5 times when biowaste is combined with compost production and use, material recovery and reprocessing for fertilizer and raw material substitution.