LCA on the organic fraction of household waste in the Netherlands

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LCA on the organic fraction of household waste in
the Netherlands
Marco Kraakman senior policy-maker Waste
Management Council
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Overview presentation

• Introduction Waste Management Council
• National Waste Management Plan
• Organic fraction of household waste in the
  Netherlands
• LCA
• input, results and uncertainties
• Comment and suggestions
• Recalculation of the LCA
• input, results and uncertainties
• Conclusions

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The Waste Management Council (1)

• Consultative platform for waste management in the
  Netherlands, established in 1990
• A platform for consultation, co-ordination and
  co-operation between the national, provincial and
  municipal authorities on waste management policy
  in the Netherlands
• Supporting bureau fully paid by the national
  government

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Waste Management Council (2)

• Main targets
• Reach a coherent and cohesive waste management
• Organising waste management at a national scale
• Characteristics
• The council has only influence and no
  competencies the competencies and
  responsibilities of local municipal and
  provincial authorities are not affected
• The council facilitates a joint implementation of
  waste management-programmes
• Agenda open to all members
• Programmes, decisions and agreements accepted in
  consensus

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Waste Management Council (3)

• Tasks
• Supporting national government with drawing up
  the national waste management plans
• Advising the national and provincial government
  on deviation from the plan
• Monitoring and evaluation progress in waste
  management
• Supporting provincial and national government in
  licensing
• A executive office, which serves as an
  information centre on waste

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National Waste Management Plan

• One of the sector plans deals with organic waste
  including the organic fraction of households.
• The sector plans contain so called minimum
  standard which are supported by an EIA, using LCA

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Minimum standard

• A minimum standard indicates the minimum quality
  level of the treatment/processing of a particular
  waste substance of category of waste substances
  and is intended to prevent waste being
  treated/processed to a lower level than is
  desirable.
• New licences are only granted if the
  environmental performance equals or is less than
  the minimum standard.
• The environmental performance can be determined
  with LCA but that is not necessary.

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Organic waste from households in the Netherlands

• Separate collection started around 1990
• Roughly 50 of the organic fraction is collected
  separately
• Nearly all separate collected organic waste is
  treated via composting. The non-separate
  collected organic waste is incinerated

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separate collection of organic waste from
households in the Netherlands (kton/yr)
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Relevant aspects of waste treatment in the
Netherlands

• Landfilling of organic waste or organic fractions
  only by exception
• All waste incineration plants produce electricity
  (net 22) and some produce heat as well
• The Netherlands agricultural act limits the
  addition of nutrients on soil (thus enhancing
  competition of inorganic fertilizers, compost,
  manure, etc.)
• The use of compost is limited to 6 ton d.m. per
  10.000 m2 per year

Some of these aspects will prove to be important
for de LCA-results, showing that studies in the
several EU member-states are very difficult to
compare
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Overview of study material

• LCA-1 (eia, AOO and several actors) 2001 - 2002
• Review of LCA for biowaste gasification (TNO)
  Spring 2002
• Review of LCA for biowaste composting/incineration
  (Grontmij) Early 2004
• Review of selected LCAs for biowaste and
  parameters C-sequestration and disease
  suppression (IVAM) Early 2004
• Scientific workshop with agricultural and
  LCA-experts May 2004
• LCA-2 (Grontmij, IVAM) Autumn 2004 in draft
• Conclusion high level of LCI-knowledge but with
  uncertainties and not without debate

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Key features

• F.u. 1 ton of collected biowaste with average
  composition (e.g. dry matter 40) and 5
  non-biowaste residues
• System borders - no capital goods- background
  processes (energy, transport) mainly based on
  ETH96- first cascade leaching of byproducts
  accounted
• Allocation principles system enlargement
  (avoided burden)
• Impact assessment based on CML-guide 2001
• Normalized scores are valuated with several sets
  of valuation factors
• Sensitivity analysis determines significance of
  comparative LCAs

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Identifying feasible techniques

• Separate collection and composting ()
• Separate collection and anaerobic digestion
• Separate collection, gasification and use of the
  gas as a fuel
• Non-separate collection and incineration in a
  (municipal) waste incineration plant ()
• Non-separate collection, separation from
  non-organic fraction and anaerobic digestion

() this presentation will focus on these
techniques
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Relevant input for composting

• 350 kg compost per ton organic waste
• 35 replacement of peat, 12,5 replacement of
  fertilizer (49 kg per ton compost), 12,5
  replacement manure

two other scenario's (20/10/10 and 50/20/20) used
in sensitivity analysis

• Metals-emission to soil only taken into account
  above compost quality regulations (in fact no
  metals were taken into account)

as sensitivity analysis metal-emission were taken
into account above clean-soil regulations

• Energy-use 32 kWh per ton organic waste
• Transport biowaste 35 tkm

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Relevant input for incineration

• Energy-content is 3,2 GJ / ton organic waste

No energy production for organic waste taken into
account. In a sensitivity analysis an energy
production 231 kWh per ton organic waste was
accounted for

• Energy-use 50 kWh per ton organic waste
• Transport biowaste 40 tkm

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Result (sum of normalized impact scores!)
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Relevant variations
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Conclusions and consequences for the national
waste management plan

• No significant difference between incineration
  and composting (neither one obviously better or
  worse)
• No reason to quit separate collection and
  composting as central policy, especially since

• quitting would cause land filling due to
  insufficient incineration capacity
• composting cheaper than incineration
• large amounts of money were invested to establish
  en efficient structure for collection and waste
  treatment

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Comments on the LCA (1)

• National EIA-committee

• Emission of metals tot soil should have been
  taken into account without correction for
  emission-norms, compost quality norms, clean soil
  norms or whatever
• Since the organic waste is incinerated with all
  types of other waste the low (but positive)
  heating value is no is no reason that the caloric
  content of the waste does not contribute tot the
  production of electricity

According to the committee the presentation of
composting is to positive and the presentation of
incineration is to negative
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Comments on the LCA (2)

• Composting sector

1. The effect of C-sequestration is
underestimated 2. Disease suppression by compost
is not taken into account 3. Positive effects on
soil quality by using compost were not taken into
account
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Additional suggestions (composting sector)

• NH3- and CH4-emissions from composting
  overestimated
• Modern composting plants lead to less residues
  (to landfill or incineration) and produces about
  400 kg compost per ton organic waste instead of
  350 kg
• The use of compost in all cases (not only on
  agricultural land) leads to the replacement of
  fertilizer
• The amount of fertilizer replaced should be 71,5
  kg per ton compost instead of 49,5 kg due to
  stability of N-fraction.
• For incineration less changes e.g. fate of
  bottom ash, increased efficiency of DeNOx

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Actions taken and adaptations made

• International search for LCA-studies on organic
  waste, focussing on and C-sequestration and
  disease suppression
• Scientific debate on the positive aspects of the
  use of compost

• Carbon sequestration was set on 60,5 kg CO2 per
  ton of compost (10 of the C-content) or 21,2 kg
  per ton organic waste.
• Disease-prevention was concluded to be promising
  but yet unreliable for farmers. Since farmers can
  not be sure it will work they will not really use
  less chemicals.
• General soil-improving effects of compost
  (salinity, erosion control) can not be quantified
  properly and therefore not incorporated in the
  LCA.

• Data on emissions, amounts of residue amounts of
  fertilizer replaced were updated

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Draft results of the recalculations (sum of
normalized impact scores!)
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Draft results of the recalculations (sum of
normalized impact scores!)
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Remarks

• Environmental profile of composting improved due
  to- much less emissions from composting (NH3,
  CH4)- more N-substitution by compost accounted
• Avoided production of fertilizers now dominant
• Accounting of energy production (incineration)
  and heavy metals (composting) are still
  uncertainties with large impact
• Additional information on increased crop yield
  (5) due to compost application has significant
  impact but remains uncertain
• Effect of carbon-sequestration has only a small
  effect on the resulting environmental profile

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Final conclusions

• The impact assessment method for heavy metals
  seems insufficient for compost. The calculated
  ecotoxicological impact didnt match actual
  knowledge. The large effect on the outcome of the
  LCA makes it impossible to make a distinction
  between composting and incineration.
• The energy-production by incineration has a
  strong influence on the outcome of the LCA. This
  also means that the outcome strongly depends on
  de type of organic waste treated but also on the
  member-state that acts as a reference.
• The applications in which compost replaces
  fertilizer and type and amount of fertilizer that
  is replaced influence the outcome of the LCA.
  These aspect also might differ between the
  various member states.
• Effects like disease-suppression and soil
  improvement can currently not be incorporated in
  the LCA due to lack of data. For increased crop
  yield as a proxy some data is available but
  uncertain.

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toegift
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Responsibilities since 2003

• May 2002 revision of waste management act into
  force
• National Ministry of environment, decides on
• the national waste management plan
• licensing disposal facilities, import and export
  of waste
• environmental regulations and enforcement at
  national level
• Provincial 12 provinces fysical planning,
  licensing, enforcement of compliance on
  provincial level
• Municipal 500 municipalities
• (separate) collection of household waste
• licensing small scale business, spatial planning
  and permits

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Variations in LCA 1 (sum of normalized scores)