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Cited by 192Municipal Solid Waste ManagementLandfill Environmental Impact StudiesEnvironmental Impact and Sustainability

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 31 of the 31 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Assessing the environmental sustainability of energy recovery from municipal solid waste in the UK

Open access
Jeswani, H.K., Azapagic, A.·2016·Waste Management
DOI 10.1016/j.wasman.2016.02.010
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Abstract

Even though landfilling of waste is the least favourable option in the waste management hierarchy, the majority of municipal solid waste (MSW) in many countries is still landfilled. This represents waste of valuable resources and could lead to higher environmental impacts compared to energy recovered by incineration, even if the landfill gas is recovered. Using life cycle assessment (LCA) as a tool, this paper aims to find out which of the following two options for MSW disposal is more environmentally sustainable: incineration or recovery of biogas from landfills, each producing either electricity or co-generating heat and electricity. The systems are compared on a life cycle basis for two functional units: 'disposal of 1 tonne of MSW' and 'generation of 1 kWh of electricity'. The results indicate that, if both systems are credited for their respective recovered energy and recyclable materials, energy from incineration has much lower impacts than from landfill biogas across all impact categories, except for human toxicity. The impacts of incineration co-generating heat and electricity are negative for nine out of 11 categories as the avoided impacts for the recovered energy and materials are higher than those caused by incineration. By improving the recovery rate of biogas, some impacts of landfilling, such as global warming, depletion of fossil resources, acidification and photochemical smog, would be significantly reduced. However, most impacts of the landfill gas would still be higher than the impacts of incineration, except for global warming and human toxicity. The analysis on the basis of net electricity produced shows that the LCA impacts of electricity from incineration are several times lower in comparison to the impacts of electricity from landfill biogas. Electricity from incineration has significantly lower global warming and several other impacts than electricity from coal and oil but has higher impacts than electricity from natural gas or UK grid. At the UK level, diverting all MSW currently landfilled to incineration with energy recovery would not only avoid the environmental impacts associated with landfilling but, under the current assumptions, would also meet 2.3% of UK's electricity demand and save 2-2.6 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

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  • If recycling is not possible, energy recovery (waste to energy) should be considered as an alternative.

    “If recycling is not possible, energy recovery (waste to energy) should be considered as an alternative (Jeswani and Azapagic, 2016;Šomplák et al., 2019).”

    From Packaging design for the circular economy: A systematic review (2022) · cites this paper as Jeswani and Azapagic, 2016

    The Introduction describes recycling and resource recovery as encouraged alternatives to landfilling, and the Conclusions find environmental benefits from incineration with energy recovery under the UK conditions studied. The paper does not specifically say that energy recovery should be considered when recycling is not possible; its comparison is between incineration and landfilling, not recycling and energy recovery. The supplied passages have section labels but no page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.79)

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  1. IPCC, 2006. Guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, vol. 5. www.ipcc.ch (accessed December 2014).

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Metadata

Authors
Jeswani, H. K., & Azapagic, A.
Affiliations
University of Manchester (GB)
Corresponding author
Azapagic, A.
ORCID
Venue
Waste Management
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2016-04
Volume
50
Pages
346-363
ISSN
0956-053X (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.wasman.2016.02.010
OpenAlex
W2287910927
Cited by
192
References
31
Citations by year
2026: 12 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 3
FWCI
24.60
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Waste Management (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (publishedVersion)
Funders
UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K011820/1)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Waste Management and Disposal › Municipal Solid Waste Management
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Waste Management and Disposal › Landfill Environmental Impact Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
Keywords
municipal solid waste, energy recovery, incineration, landfill gas, biogas, waste-to-energy electricity, combined heat and power, life cycle assessment, environmental impact, greenhouse gas emissions, waste hierarchy, landfill diversion
MeSH terms
Environment, United Kingdom, Refuse Disposal, Incineration, Waste Management, Biofuels, Recycling, Solid Waste, Waste Disposal Facilities

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