End- of- life scenarios for municipal solid waste of defence housing authority Lahore, Pakistan

This paper evaluates the environmental impacts of various municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment options produced on-site simultaneously with energy and material recovery. The results present a comparison of life cycle assessment (LCA) for municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in five different waste scenarios along with baseline scenario of the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) in Lahore. All scenarios were modeled using EaseTech software. Nine impact categories were assessed and results were presented based on the ASTM D5231-92(2003) characterization method. Results revealed that a material recovery facility (MRF) had low global warming potential (GWP), but lower avoided burdens in other impact categories. The incineration process indicated fewer burdens on the environment such as GWP (-2.086×107 kg CO2eq) as compared to landfills (2.461×10 7 kg CO2eq). This was due to lower avoided emissions in the landfill process compared to incineration. The negative values in results represented higher avoided emissions in treatment processes. Bio-gasification avoided CO2 emissions (-8.053×10 5 kg CO2eq), but showed negative impacts in other categories. Almost all impact categories were high in composting except for freshwater eutrophication. LCA results provided good knowledge for decision makers as a tool to decide what alternative is a better change for sustainable waste management.