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Optimizing resource and energy recovery for materials and waste management
Citation:
Thorneloe, S. Optimizing resource and energy recovery for materials and waste management. GoGreen Portland, Portland, OR, October 05, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
To present EPA research to develop decision support tool that optimizes energy and resource recovery from municipal solid waste.
Description:
Decisions affecting materials management today are generally based on cost and a presumption of favorable outcomes without an understanding of the environmental tradeoffs. However, there is a growing demand to better understand and quantify the net environmental and energy trade-offs in setting waste management goals and priorities at a state and local level. In 2012, EPA’s Office of Research and Development released the MSW decision support tool (MSW-DST) to help identify strategies for more sustainable waste management. Depending upon local infrastructure, energy grid mix, population density, and waste composition and quantity, the most sustainable strategies will vary in regards to the net life-cycle assessment (LCA) impacts and cost. Users of this tool are able to identify opportunities to reduce carbon emissions and air criteria pollutants through optimization of resource and energy recovery from waste. The tool evaluates the material and energy flows from point of collection throughout the system to aid in materials management decision-making, planning, and policy development.