Life cycle environmental and economic comparison of thermal utilization of refuse derived fuel manufactured from landfilled waste or fresh waste.

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses environmental and economic performance of thermal utilization technologies of two different refuse derived fuel (RDF) manufactured from landfilled waste or fresh municipal waste, including incineration of landfilled RDF (I-LRDF), gasification of landfilled RDF (G-LRDF), replacement of partial coal by landfilled RDF for the cement industry (C-LRDF), incineration of municipal RDF (I-MRDF), and replacement of partial coal by municipal RDF for the cement industry (C-MRDF). The preference among the RDF utilization options is identified from the standpoints of various stakeholders by integrating the life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approaches. RDF thermal utilization technologies bring an economic profit of $17.29∼$35.77 per ton of waste. Especially, I-LRDF has the worst effect on ecosystem quality and human health and can yield the greatest economic profit of $35.77 per ton of landfilled waste, while I-MRDF has the least impact on environment. In terms of the five RDF thermal utilization technologies, I-MRDF has the best comprehensive performance from the perspectives of different stakeholders. The improvement of the RDF thermal utilization efficiency is the most critical factor affecting the economic benefits for all cases.