Integrated solid waste management and energy production - a life cycle assessment approach: the case study of the city of Thessaloniki

Innovative strategies are needed to deal with the waste we produce today to prevent it from causing problems for future generations. As waste management issues gain public awareness, concern has risen about the appropriateness of various disposal methods. The objective of this work is the environmental assessment of different municipal solid waste treatment strategies for the city of Thessaloniki, within the methodological frameworks of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the Integrated Solid Waste Management strategy, taking into account social, environmental and economic effects. The waste management methods in this study include: landfill of all waste fractions, recycling of paper, and anaerobic digestion of food waste in a biological treatment plant. The waste fractions considered are the total amount of food, paper and plastic waste produced in Thessaloniki during the period of one year. Environmental impacts are decreased when the solid waste management methods include some kind of recovery from waste. The results of this work indicate that paper recycling and anaerobic digestion of food waste is preferable compared to landfilling. It is also shown that landfilling of food waste utilizing the biocells method is more attractive than anaerobic digestion in a separate plant; nevertheless, energy recovery is about 45% lower.