Is the policy of the European Union in waste management sustainable? An assessment of the Italian context.

The sustainability of the waste management system imposed by EU legislation was assessed using the Italian context as a case study by analysing the period from the year 2007 to the year 2016. An integrated sustainability indicator (ISI) based on environmental, social and economic life cycle approach was used. Since the earlier directives the EU waste management policy was strongly oriented to the implementation of the higher levels of the hierarchy, i.e. preparation for reuse and recycling, and a contemporary ban of disposal activities and in particular of landfill. All this was stated in legal quantitative targets to be achieved within a given scheduled time, demonstrated by continuous implementation of a reliable economic, legal and political framework including, among others, penalties, economic support and extended producer responsibility. Noticeable increase of the amount of waste moved to recycling led to a decrease of main environmental burden due to kgCO2eq and kgPeq. The same activity led to avoided impacts detected for both kgPMeq and human health (DALY). A relevant role related to these benefits was also played by the waste to energy sector. Opposite trend was found for the whole average management costs that change from about 146 €/inhabitant in 2007 to about 218 €/inhabitant in 2016. A general decrease of the ISI of about 10% was also detected indicating an increase of the overall sustainability of the system.

Impact of different schemes for treating landfill leachate.

Different technological schemes for treating the leachate generated by an existing landfill were compared in a life cycle perspective. On-site advanced processes based on reverse osmosis and evaporation were compared to conventional off-site co-treatment with civil sewage in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The inventories of the different scenarios were built by both direct observation of existing facilities and by retrieving data from the literature and similar equipment. Particular care was given for evaluating the energetic and chemical needs for operating the on-site advanced treatments. The evaporation system required 40 kW h/m3 of electricity and 18.5 kW h/m3 of heat, whereas reverse osmosis needed only 8.5 kW h/m3 of electricity. On the other hand the amount of liquid concentrate returned by the evaporation system was only about 0.03 m3/m3 instead of about 0.30 m3/m3 returned by reverse osmosis. The evaporation system also consumed the highest amount of chemicals. Life cycle analysis showed that the impact categories most affected by the different options were human toxicity, both non-cancer and cancer, together with freshwater ecotoxicity. The uncertainty analysis highlighted the major contribution associated with direct emissions from the processes. On the basis of mean values, the qualitative trends were substantially confirmed.