Green house gas emissions from composting and mechanical biological treatment

Abstract

In order to carry out life-cycle assessments as a basis for far-reaching decisions about environmentally sustainable waste treatment, it is important that the input data be reliable and sound. A comparison of the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with each solid waste treatment option is essential. This paper addresses GHG emissions from controlled composting processes. Some important methodological prerequisites for proper measurement and data interpretation are described, and a common scale and dimension of emission data are proposed so that data from different studies can be compared. A range of emission factors associated with home composting, open windrow composting, encapsulated composting systems with waste air treatment and mechanical biological waste treatment (MBT) are presented from our own investigations as well as from the literature. The composition of source materials along with process management issues such as aeration, mechanical agitation, moisture control and temperature regime are the most important factors controlling methane (CH 4), nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and ammoniac (NH 3) emissions. If ammoniac is not stripped during the initial rotting phase or eliminated by acid scrubber systems, biofiltration of waste air provides only limited GHG mitigation, since additional N 2 O may be synthesized during the oxidation of NH 3, and only a small amount of CH 4 degradation occurs in the biofilter. It is estimated that composting contributes very little to national GHG inventories generating only 0.01—0.06% of global emissions. This analysis does not include emissions from preceding or post-treatment activities (such as collection, transport, energy consumption during processing and land spreading), so that for a full emissions account, emissions from these activities would need to be added to an analysis.