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Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Energy Recovery Technologies
Citation:
Thorneloe, S., K. Weitz, J. Stephenson, AND O. Kaplan. Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Energy Recovery Technologies. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-20/142, 2020.
Impact/Purpose:
To provide guidance to island and tribal communities - and all other communities - on waste conversion technology usage in the U.S. using updated information to evaluate the life-cycle environmental trade-offs and other considerations if adopting these technologies for solid waste management.
Description:
This report aims to be a resource for communities wanting to better understand waste conversion technologies, their risk profiles, and how their life-cycle environmental impacts compare to recycling, conventional WTE, and landfilling. The report provides technology definitions, process descriptions, listing of current facilities in the US*, life cycle inventory (LCI) data available to characterize these technologies and recommend criteria to use in comparing technologies to conventional MSW management options.