Carbon emissions under different domestic waste treatment modes induced by garbage classification: Case study in pilot communities in Shanghai, China

Sisi Chen; Jialiang Huang; Tingting Xiao; Jun Gao; Jianfeng Bai; Wei Luo; Bin Dong

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137193

Carbon emissions under different domestic waste treatment modes induced by garbage classification: Case study in pilot communities in Shanghai, China

Sci Total Environ. 2020 May 15:717:137193. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137193. Epub 2020 Feb 8.

Authors

Sisi Chen¹, Jialiang Huang², Tingting Xiao¹, Jun Gao¹, Jianfeng Bai³, Wei Luo⁴, Bin Dong⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, PR China.
² School of Environment and Architecture, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China.
³ WEEE Research Centre of Shanghai Second Polytechnic University, Shanghai 201209, China.
⁴ Beijing Jinghuan Intelligent Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd, Beijing 100101, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, PR China. Electronic address: dongbin@tongji.edu.cn.

PMID: 32062281
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137193

Abstract

The GHGs contributions (tally by carbon emissions) during treatment of domestic food waste and residual waste from pilot communities (contained 2365 families) in Shanghai, China, under different Modes induced by garbage classification were investigated. It was found that under the present condition of garbage classification in Shanghai, 51.8% of the food waste could be separated finally. With garbage classification, the load of landfill was saved by 17.3% (Mode 2) and 16.5% (Mode 3), the moisture of garbage for incineration was reduced by 13.6%, and the lower heating value (LHV) of garbage was increased by 16.2%. Applying the life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology and Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) with material flows, net carbon emissions during the treatment of garbage were found to be in the following order: Mode 3 (1.60 × 10^-3 kg CE/kg waste) < Mode 2 (4.85 × 10^-3 kg CE/kg waste) < Mode 1 (4.94 × 10^-3 kg CE/kg waste) < landfill (1.49 × 10^-2 kg CE/kg waste). Mode 2 and Mode 3 were replaceable patterns of Mode 1, and anaerobic digestion was the recommendable strategy to recover energy from food waste. Especially, there was no obvious benefit of increasing the separation proportion of food waste to 60% (or above) for reducing net carbon emissions in the following treatment processes.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Carbon emission; Composting; Domestic waste; Garbage classification; Incineration.