Life cycle inventories of waste management processes

Abstract

To allow for an up-to-date and geographically specific life cycle assessment, updated and regionally specific life cycle inventories are crucial. This data article present up-to-date life cycle inventories of several collection, sorting and recycling processes of municipal solid waste fractions for life cycle assessments of waste management systems. In total, 190 life cycle inventories for processes within municipal solid waste management were either newly developed or adapted from existing datasets. The data for 51 recycling processes has been collected to update existing processes or create new process models. Two modules for biogenic processes were taken from literature and 10 processes were modeled based on the existing ecoinvent processes with minor adjustments [1]. The substitution of 36 materials from recycling processes was modeled. In addition, the thermal treatment of 12 waste fractions was modeled within 84 life cycle inventories compromising the thermal waste treatment and the recovery and recycling of recovered fractions from fly and bottom ash. The assumptions and the modelling of the waste treatment processes are described. All life cycle inventory datasets which were newly created, updated or modified compared to the original dataset are described and provided as Excel table. The data are associated with the research article ''Modular Life Cycle Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Management” [2].