Life cycle assessment of small-scale incineration facilities: Reducing environmental burdens in underdeveloped areas

Abstract

Mismanagement of solid waste in underdeveloped areas causes severe hazards on the environment and human health. Mature waste technologies are still not available in these areas due to the shortages of funds and expertise. Small-scale incineration is one promising waste technology to solve the dilemma. However, there is still doubt in the environment aspects of it. Therefore, this study examines the environmental impacts of small-scale incineration using attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) based on field and literature data. The analysis encompasses waste generation, collection and transportation, auxiliary materials and energy, and pollution emissions, with calculations performed on a novel Python-based LCA tool integrating Monte Carlo methods and global sensitivity analysis. Two scenarios are set up, S0 for small-scale incineration alone and S1 for switching from open burning to small-scale incineration. The functional unit is treating 1 tonne waste. The results show that although average performances of small-scale incineration are worse than those of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) incineration, it has the potential to be improved to reach the same level of WtE. When compared to open burning, small-scale incineration shows substantial advantages environmentally. The sensitivity analysis identifies pollution emission and auxiliary materials and energy consumptions the most sensitive factors and finds emissions of black carbon, direct fossil CO₂, arsenic, mercury, NOx et al. the most sensitive parameters. Based on these findings, new standard limits emphasizing on aforementioned pollutants and pollutants derived directly from waste contents are proposed to better regulate the operation of small-scale incineration facilities.