title: Greenhouse gas emissions during MSW landfilling in China: influence of waste characteristics and LFG treatment measures.
abstract: Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment can be highly cost-effective in terms of GHG mitigation. This study investigated GHG emissions during MSW landfilling in China under four existing scenarios and in terms of seven different categories: waste collection and transportation, landfill management, leachate treatment, fugitive CH4 (FM) emissions, substitution of electricity production, carbon sequestration and N2O and CO emissions. GHG emissions from simple sanitary landfilling technology where no landfill gas (LFG) extraction took place (Scenario 1) were higher (641-998 kg CO2-eq·t(-1)ww) than those from open dump (Scenario 0, 480-734 kg CO2-eq·t(-1)ww). This was due to the strictly anaerobic conditions in Scenario 1. LFG collection and treatment reduced GHG emissions to 448-684 kg CO2-eq·t(-1)ww in Scenario 2 (with LFG flare) and 214-277 kg CO2-eq·t(-1)ww in Scenario 3 (using LFG for electricity production). Amongst the seven categories, FM was the predominant contributor to GHG emissions. Global sensitivity analysis demonstrated that the parameters associated with waste characteristics (i.e. CH4 potential and carbon sequestered faction) and LFG management (i.e. LFG collection efficiency and CH4 oxidation efficiency) were of great importance. A further learning on the MSW in China indicated that water content and dry matter content of food waste were the basic factors affecting GHG emissions. Source separation of food waste, as well as increasing the incineration ratio of mixed collected MSW, could effectively mitigate the overall GHG emissions from landfilling in a specific city. To increase the LFG collection and CH4 oxidation efficiencies could considerably reduce GHG emissions on the landfill site level. While, the improvement in the LFG utilization measures had an insignificant impact as long as the LFG is recovered for energy generation.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, PR China. Electronic address: 1986yangna@tongji.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Na
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Li-Ming
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lü
authors.forename: Pin-Jing
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: He
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000032:analysis* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002681:China; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation / Q000379:methods*; D005740:Gases / Q000032:analysis*; D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012037:Refuse Disposal; D012984:Software; D064091:Waste Disposal Facilities
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D005740:Gases
keywords: Greenhouse gas emissions; Landfill gas; Mitigation measures; Municipal solid waste landfilling; Waste characteristics