Scenarios of Municipal Solid Waste Management for Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emission: A Case Study of Supermarket in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

As a consequence of rapid urbanization and population growth, many cities have faces issues of waste management. Landfill approach is generally decided for handling most of municipal solid waste, resulting the impacts of environment especially land occupation and global warming. As commercial building plays an importance role not only for economic value but also for environmental aspects, a supermarket located in community mall was selected as a case study towards sustainable cities. This study was aimed to investigate the current MSW management system of supermarket in order to quantify its environmental performance and to propose suitable options for improving municipal solid waste management. The findings revealed that at the business-as-usual, 397 tCO2e was emitted annually from landfilling waste of a supermarket in Thailand. However, if waste management has improved by recycling plus bio-gasification approach, not only 374 tCO2e/year will not be emitted from landfilling, but 243 tCO2e/year also be reduced due to the activities in relevant to recycling and bio-gasification process. Moreover, applying such approach provides benefit in economic term about 18,321 USD a year. The results of this study could inspire another commercial buildings or others sector to adopting waste management practices together for creating a network of sustainable cities through suitable waste management system.