LCA Methodology

Abstract

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The final disposal of waste in sanitary landfills generates environmental impacts in the form of gaseous emissions and effluents in the seepage water. In product specific Life Cycle Assessments, these environmental impacts resulting from the disposal of the product under study frequently have a strong influence on the overall results. The Sanitary Landfill (SL), like the Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI), is a complex system with a large variety of different types of waste with varying input composition. A direct determination of the environmental impacts resulting from the landfilling of a single input component, e.g. by measurements, is not possible. The model approach described in this paper shows an operationalized concept for the allocation of the environmental effects caused by the landfill process to special input components. The calculation of the landfill emissions in the model is based on the emission spectrum (landfill gas and seepage water) of an average-sized landfill in Germany and the elementary composition of the single waste fraction under consideration. The resulting reactor landfill module comprises an average split for diffuse and captured landfill emissions, the use of captured landfill gases in a gas engine and a cleaning of captured seepage water in a waste water treatment plant. A short case study demonstrates the calculation of the effects of landfilling of a defined waste fraction (bottle fraction in post-consumer, plastic waste).