Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios
Waste management has developed in many countries and will continue to do so. Changes towards increased recovery of resources in order to meet climate targets and for society to transition to a circular economy are important driving forces. Scenarios are important tools for planning and assessing pos...
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doaj-747b7e69548f442f82778af27ae5f06d2020-11-24T21:07:23ZengMDPI AGEnergies1996-10732017-02-0110224710.3390/en10020247en10020247Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management ScenariosYevgeniya Arushanyan0Anna Björklund1Ola Eriksson2Göran Finnveden3Maria Ljunggren Söderman4Jan-Olov Sundqvist5Åsa Stenmarck6Division of Environmental Strategies Research, Department of Sustainable development, Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Architecture and Built Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, SwedenDivision of Environmental Strategies Research, Department of Sustainable development, Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Architecture and Built Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Building, Energy and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Sustainable Development, University of Gävle, SE-801 76 Gävle, SwedenDivision of Environmental Strategies Research, Department of Sustainable development, Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Architecture and Built Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, SwedenDivision of Environmental Systems Analysis, Department of Energy and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Göteborg, SwedenIVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, PO Box 210 60, SE-100 31 Stockholm, SwedenIVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, PO Box 210 60, SE-100 31 Stockholm, SwedenWaste management has developed in many countries and will continue to do so. Changes towards increased recovery of resources in order to meet climate targets and for society to transition to a circular economy are important driving forces. Scenarios are important tools for planning and assessing possible future developments and policies. This paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) model for environmental assessments of scenarios and waste management policy instruments. It is unique by including almost all waste flows in a country and also allow for including waste prevention. The results show that the environmental impacts from future waste management scenarios in Sweden can differ a lot. Waste management will continue to contribute with environmental benefits, but less so in the more sustainable future scenarios, since the surrounding energy and transportation systems will be less polluting and also because less waste will be produced. Valuation results indicate that climate change, human toxicity and resource depletion are the most important environmental impact categories for the Swedish waste management system. Emissions of fossil CO2 from waste incineration will continue to be a major source of environmental impacts in these scenarios. The model is used for analyzing environmental impacts of several policy instruments including weight based collection fee, incineration tax, a resource tax and inclusion of waste in a green electricity certification system. The effect of the studied policy instruments in isolation are in most cases limited, suggesting that stronger policy instruments as well as combinations are necessary to reach policy goals as set out in for example the EU action plan on circular economy.http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/2/247waste managementlife cycle assessment (LCA)environmental assessmentscenario assessmentwaste policy assessment |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Yevgeniya Arushanyan Anna Björklund Ola Eriksson Göran Finnveden Maria Ljunggren Söderman Jan-Olov Sundqvist Åsa Stenmarck |
spellingShingle |
Yevgeniya Arushanyan Anna Björklund Ola Eriksson Göran Finnveden Maria Ljunggren Söderman Jan-Olov Sundqvist Åsa Stenmarck Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios Energies waste management life cycle assessment (LCA) environmental assessment scenario assessment waste policy assessment |
author_facet |
Yevgeniya Arushanyan Anna Björklund Ola Eriksson Göran Finnveden Maria Ljunggren Söderman Jan-Olov Sundqvist Åsa Stenmarck |
author_sort |
Yevgeniya Arushanyan |
title |
Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios |
title_short |
Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios |
title_full |
Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios |
title_fullStr |
Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios |
title_full_unstemmed |
Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios |
title_sort |
environmental assessment of possible future waste management scenarios |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Energies |
issn |
1996-1073 |
publishDate |
2017-02-01 |
description |
Waste management has developed in many countries and will continue to do so. Changes towards increased recovery of resources in order to meet climate targets and for society to transition to a circular economy are important driving forces. Scenarios are important tools for planning and assessing possible future developments and policies. This paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) model for environmental assessments of scenarios and waste management policy instruments. It is unique by including almost all waste flows in a country and also allow for including waste prevention. The results show that the environmental impacts from future waste management scenarios in Sweden can differ a lot. Waste management will continue to contribute with environmental benefits, but less so in the more sustainable future scenarios, since the surrounding energy and transportation systems will be less polluting and also because less waste will be produced. Valuation results indicate that climate change, human toxicity and resource depletion are the most important environmental impact categories for the Swedish waste management system. Emissions of fossil CO2 from waste incineration will continue to be a major source of environmental impacts in these scenarios. The model is used for analyzing environmental impacts of several policy instruments including weight based collection fee, incineration tax, a resource tax and inclusion of waste in a green electricity certification system. The effect of the studied policy instruments in isolation are in most cases limited, suggesting that stronger policy instruments as well as combinations are necessary to reach policy goals as set out in for example the EU action plan on circular economy. |
topic |
waste management life cycle assessment (LCA) environmental assessment scenario assessment waste policy assessment |
url |
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/2/247 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT yevgeniyaarushanyan environmentalassessmentofpossiblefuturewastemanagementscenarios AT annabjorklund environmentalassessmentofpossiblefuturewastemanagementscenarios AT olaeriksson environmentalassessmentofpossiblefuturewastemanagementscenarios AT goranfinnveden environmentalassessmentofpossiblefuturewastemanagementscenarios AT marialjunggrensoderman environmentalassessmentofpossiblefuturewastemanagementscenarios AT janolovsundqvist environmentalassessmentofpossiblefuturewastemanagementscenarios AT asastenmarck environmentalassessmentofpossiblefuturewastemanagementscenarios |
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