Analysis of municipal waste management systems using LCI and LCIA: Case study South Backa waste management region: Serbia

Abstract

Republic of Serbia as a candidate for the EU is obliged to comply with EU directives. This refers to waste management sector as well. Different goals need to be fulfilled, and current waste management practice must be improved in order to meet all necessary EU objectives. Thus information's to support future waste management decisions can be very important in developing and streamlining future strategies. The combination of IWM-2 model and Impact2002+ methodology is a base comparison and evaluation of different municipal solid waste management strategies in Serbia. The IWM-2 model involves the second stage (life cycle inventory-LCI) and Impact2002+ third stage (life cycle impact assessment-LCIA) of the Life Cycle Assessment-LCA procedure defined in ISO 14040. In order to evaluate how will improvement of waste management influence the environmental, energy and cost performance of waste management in Serbia, alternative scenario is developed representative for Novi Sad region. The scenario includes necessary technologies in order to fulfill the minimum of EU requirements at most affordable costs. The more advanced options are not considered. The current and alternative scenario is developed and results are evaluated by IWM-2 and Impact 2002+ methods. Results clearly indicates the difference between scenarios and show how would implementation of composting and increased recycling rates have positive influence environmental performance on MSW management in Novi Sad region.

Keywords

• municipal waste
• waste management system
• life cycle assessment