The 31st International Conference on Solid

Waste Technology and Management

April 3-6, 2016

Philadelphia, PA U.S.A.

The Journal of Solid Waste Technology and Management

Department of Civil Engineering | Widener University
1 University Place Chester, PA 19013-5792 USA Phone:
610-499-4018 | Fax: 610-499-4461 | Email:
solid.waste@widener.edu • http://www.solidwaste

ISSN 1091-8043
© 2016 Journal of Solid Waste Technology and Management
The responsibility for contents rests upon the authors and not
upon JSWTM or Widener University
Novel Up Flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Solid-State Reactor for Treatment of the
789
Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Wastes, Gabriela Zafra Jiménez, José Guadalupe
Vian Pérez, Sergio Esteban Vigeuras Carmona, Alejandra Velasco Pérez, México

Plasma Gasification Technology for Energy Recovery from Waste, Rahul Baidya,
794
Sadhan Kumar Ghosh, India

Utilization of Discarded Waste in a Composting Plant for Energy Recovery by Plasma

806
Gasification-A Proposed Model, Rahul Baidya, Sadhan Kumar Ghosh, , India

SESSION 6D
Sludge

Influence of Sludge and Sludge Bio-Char on the Transfer of Available Heavy Metals in
Soil, Guangwei Yu, Yin Wang, Xiang Zhang, Xiao-da Tang, Zhen Yu, Jie Li, Xing-dong 814
Wang, Zhen-Jiao Xing, Zhiwei Li, China

Municipal Solid Waste Management in Hangzhou, China, Jouni Havukainen,

Xiaodong Li, Mingxiu Zhan, Mika Horttanainen, Yan Jianhua, Finland 824

POSTER SESSION 2

Estimating Construction and Demolition (C&D) Waste Arising in Libya, Ashraf Ali,
Chukwunonye Ezeah, Jamal Khatib, United Kingdom 837

Environmental Impact Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Management Systems by

Life Cycle Assessment, Michel Xocaira Paes, Gerson Araujo de Medeiros, Sandro 850
Donnini Mancini, Brazil

Proposal for Placement and Reusing of Ribbon Tapes, Camila Honorina Barbosa
Nascimento, Fernando Codelo Nascimento, Edilene de Cássia Dutra Nunes, Antônio 862
Donizetti Giuliano, Brazil

The Impact of Medical Waste for Human Health and Environment, Vanessa Resende 866
Cruvinel, Hayssa Moares Pintel Ramos, Dayani Galato, Brazil

Properties of Rigid PVC Containing Micronized Thermoset Composite, Eliseu William, 878
Gerson Marinucci, Eliseu William, Brazil

Utilization of Some Environmental Resource Materials as a Soil Conditioner, Ahmed Ali 886
Abuzkhar, Ahmed Isa Tamzini, Libya

Reaction Mechanism and Kinetics of the Mercury Solid Waste Pyrolisis: An

Isoconversional Approach, Yailen Busto, Edesmin Wilfrido Palacios Paredes, Filip M. 897
G. Tack, Luis Manuel Peralta, Luis Ernesto Arteaga, Miriam de la Caridad Yera, Liz
Mabel Ríos, Ecuador
 Environmental Impact Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste
Management Systems by Life Cycle Assessment

S. D. Mancini, Ph.D.
Department of Environmental Engineering
São Paulo State University
Av. 3 de março, 511 – Sorocaba-SP-Brazil- CEP: 18087-180-Tel: 55-15-3238-3409
mancini@sorocaba.unesp.br

Michel X. Paes
Department of Environmental Engineering
São Paulo State University
Av. 3 de março, 511 – Sorocaba-SP-Brazil- CEP: 18087-180-Tel: 55-15-3238-3409
michelxocaira@yahoo.com.br

Gerson A. Medeiros
Department of Environmental Engineering
São Paulo State University
Av. 3 de março, 511 – Sorocaba-SP-Brazil- CEP: 18087-180-Tel: 55-15-3238-3409
gerson@sorocaba.unesp.br

Abstract: The Municipal Solid Waste Management System (MSWMS) incorporates

from the collection, transport, reduction, reuse, recycling until the disposal in landfills,
generating impacts in all its stages. This paper evaluates the environmental impacts of
MSW in the city of Sorocaba, Brazil, using the techniques of the Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA). An inventory of the life cycle of the activities, of the environmental aspects of
MSW and of the capital goods was done and this inventory was assessed by SimaPro
software. The impacts generated by the waste transport reached 77.9% of the total,
followed by methane emissions from the landfill (13.2%) and by waste landfilling and
compaction (7.8%). Landfill construction, water and energy consumption of water and
energy during selective collection and the leachate treatment accounted for less than 1%
of the total impacts.

Key words: Municipal Solid Waste Integrated Management, Life Cycle Assessment
and Environmental Impact Assessment.

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Introduction
In order to face problems and find solutions for municipal solid waste issue,
Brazil has the National Policy on Solid Waste (NPSW) since December 2010. NPSW
brought some principles, guidelines and goals, such as systemic vision, management,
and integrated waste management, the life cycle assessment, among others. Such
guidelines bring to light public policy discussions that really take into account aspects
that integrate the social, economic, cultural, political and environmental dimensions
under sustainable development and social control premises (BRAZIL, 2010).
According to the Preliminar National Plan for Solid Waste (2011), in Brazil only
2.2% of the 190,000 tons of waste generated daily were recycled, while 58.3% were
being disposed in landfills. The rest, 40% were being improperly disposed in dumps.
(BRAZIL, 2011).
Currently, some European countries already have zero landfill policy.
According to the European Union, some countries such as Germany, Netherlands,
Sweden, Austria, Denmark and Belgium have developed zero landfill policy and have
reported waste landfilling rates of below than 5%, while the remaining waste being
reused, recycled or treated through incineration processes and / or composting.
(EUROSTAT, 2011).
In order to propose improvement actions for MSW and perform accurate
diagnostics that support the decision making, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life
Cycle Thinking (LCT) have proven to be effective management tools to analyze the
performance of Municipal Solid Waste Management System (MSWMS). These
analyzes results provide data and information necessary for decision-making in the
environmental perspective and integrated management that can be taken into account
(PAES, 2014).
The LCT considers for environmental performance evaluation interactions that
occur between an anthropic system and its surroundings, necessary for certain demands
to be met. This framework therefore comprises the life cycle of a product, process or
service. That means a set of actions that extends from the natural resources extraction to
the final disposal or disabling process, going through the whole chain of
manufacturing, transport, use and reuse actions that are circumscribed (Sonneman,
2002; Silva and Kulay, 2003).
Thus, this work aims to present results about a evaluation of the environmental
impacts that are generated in the Municipal Solid Waste Management System
(MSWMS) of Sorocaba city, state of São Paulo, Brazil, through the life cycle
assessment technique in order to propose improvements to the MSWMS.

Methodology
This work was developed through a case study conducted in the city of
Sorocaba, which is located in the southeastern state of São Paulo. It is about 90 km far
from the state capital of São Paulo and according to the 2010 census, has a population
of 586,625 inhabitants, distributed in the territory of approximately 450 km2. (IBGE,
2010).

922
 Figure 1: Location of Sorocaba city, state of São Paulo, Brazil

The research was conducted through primary and secondary data. For that,
literature review was carried out, participation in public hearings and meetings of the
steering committee that drafted the Integrated Solid Waste Management Municipal Plan
(ISWMMP), where most of the data regarding the activities of the MSW of the city was
obtained. Some information related to the final disposal stage, which were not in
ISWMMP was obtained through fieldwork.
In order to reduce the technical and methodological differences associated with
an LCA study, the 40 series of 14000 family of the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) was used. Such standard ISO 14040 defines the fundamental
principles and framework for the method and the LCA management system adoption
(ISO 14040, 2009).
Thus, to perform the LCA study it is necessary to follow the four phases defined
by the standard NBR ISO 14040 (ABNT, 2009): (1) goal and scope identification: study
reason, comprehensiveness and border definitions; (2) Inventory Analysis: inputs and
outputs identification; (3) Environmental impact assessment: impact analysis,
quantification and calculation in each selected relevance category; (4) Result
Interpretation: conclusions and recommendations.
For McDougall, et al (2001), the use of Life Cycle Assessment for modeling the
Waste Integrated Management can be divided into two areas: 1. management model
structuring (which will determine how the model will work) and 2- data acquisition for
inclusion in the models. Thus, the modeling technique and / or evaluation used should
be essentially an Inventory of Municipal Solid Waste Management Lifecycle, to
sequentially hold up the environmental impact assessment.
According to Brogaard (2013), in the past, capital goods were often ignored
because of lack of data and assumptions that they would have less environmental impact
with respect to the waste management system impact itself. However, neglecting them
can lead to an environmental impact inadequate assessment of an entire waste
management system.

923
 For the author, some capital assets, such as the inherent for the collection and
transport steps, are part of important waste management systems and their associated
capital assets should also be quantified in terms of silos and fuel storage containers, as
well as trucks.
We decided at the time to consider the capital goods inherent to the MSWMS to
make the inventory and to sequentially carry out the Impact Assessment in the Life
Cycle (IALC), following Brogaard (2013).

Results and Discussions

Activities and MSWMS structure in Sorocaba.SP
The Municipal Waste Management System of Sorocaba is composed by three
main stages: collection and transportation; sorting and; final disposal of waste.
Next there is a brief description of the operations performed at each stage, as
well as operating facilities and infrastructure aspects necessary to carry out their regular
services in Sorocaba.
a) Collection and Transport: the city of Sorocaba generated, on average, over
2014, 505.5 ton per day of waste (PMS-SHS, 2014). According to the city MSWMS,
this material collection can occur in two ways: common and selective collection.
In the collection and public transport step, waste and tailings are collected
without any previous separation along the generating sources - homes and commercial
businesses and service provisions - and sent directly to final disposal in landfill. To
pursue the common collection, which is outsourced and operated by the company
Consorcio Ambiental Sorocaba (CSA), 30 waste collector-compactor trucks were
available to the MSWMS, with 05 (five) of these for spare, with minimum capacity of
15 m³ and 7 tons.
b) Sorting: Waste selective collection undergo prior separation in homes, and
then collected and transported to the sorting center, where materials are separated and
sent for recycling.
The Selective Collection operates with lower sizes/quantities of waste, reason
for which the MSWMS accounts for this action with 12 (twelve) flatbed trucks with
capacity of 4 tons.
Selective Collection: the selective collection step is performed by two
cooperatives (CORESO and Recycling Center), counting on the City of Sorocaba Town
Hall support and developed in 5 warehouses. In terms of facilities and equipment, all
buildings are equipped and processes have: scales, presses, burden lifts and five benches
for material segregation.
The average amout of separated materials and commercialized daily by
cooperatives in 2014 was 17 tons. During selective collection, wastes are generated,
which are also collected by the collection services and public transport and sent to be
disposed in the landfill.
c) Final Disposition of waste: the alternative for waste disposal in the city is a
landfill with 617,000 m² and capacity to receive a volume of about 9,000,000 cubic
meters of industrial and domestic waste during their designed service life of 20 years.
The Environmental Management Central (EMG) is managed by a private
company and is located in Iperó-SP (14 km from Sorocaba downtown), in an old area of

924
clay extraction (PMS-SHS, 2014). Sorocaba began landfilling its MSW generated in
Iperó on October 4, 2010, when the life of its former municipal landfill ended.
The landfill has bottom sealing as well as leachate, rainwater and gases draining
systems (PMS SHS-2014).
The daily capacity is 1,000 tons of receiving waste, which approximately half
the total (488.5 t / d) comes from the MSW in the city of Sorocaba.
Figure 2 shows a very broad scheme of the Sorocaba’s Municipal Solid Waste
Management System (MSWMS).

Figure 2: MSW management activities in the city of Sorocaba-SP

Table 1 shows average daily amount of organic matter (food and yard waste,
mainly) and other recyclable wastes (such as metals, plastics, glasses and paper) amount
generated in Sorocaba city, as well as those that are not recyclables. In this last item are
the wastes directed discarded by the population and the wastes refused by the selective
collection system. Both are sent for final disposal via commom collection (PMS-SHS,
2014).

Table 1: Waste classification, quantities generated and collected, their

treatment ways and final disposal.

Waste Quantity Collection Treatment Destination

Non- 73.2 t/d CSA ______ EMG Iperó
recyclables
Organic 234.3 t/d CSA ______ EMG Iperó
Matter
181 t/d CSA ______ EMG Iperó
Other
Recycliables 17 t/d CORESO and Selective Collection and Recycling
Recycling Center Commercialization by
Cooperatives

925
 We observed from Table 1 that the city does not have any recycling alternative
for organic waste (such composting or anaerobic digestion), which is generated in larger
quantities (234.3 t / d or 46.35%) and is disposed in the landfill
It is also noticed a relative small amount of waste being recycled, representing
only 3.36% (17t / d) of the total MSW generated in Sorocaba. According to the
information obtained by gravimetric characterization, presented in the Integrated Solid
Waste Management Municipal Plan (ISWMMP) of Sorocaba , 181tons per day(35.8%)
of the city’s waste such as metals, plastics, glasses and papers are going to the landfill
and could be recycled, while only 73.2 t / d (14.5%) can be considered non-recyclable
waste.

Impact Assessment in the Life Cycle (IALC) – SimaPro

Table 2 presents all the environmental impacts generated by the MSWMS of
Sorocaba city system as well as the relative contribution of each activity in terms of
arbitrary points supplied by the software.
These results also enable the sums of the environmental burdens of capital goods
considered in this study.

Table 2: Product System inputs and outputs considered and their contributions
to the environmental impact categories considering the MSWMS Operating Current
Scenario - Sorocaba.SP.
Waste Landfill Landfilling /
Impact category Unit Total CH4 Transp. Constr. Compaction Water Electri Leachate
Total Pt 22.13 2.92 17.23 0.22 1.73 0.00 0.01 0.01
Carcinogens Pt 0.06 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Resp. organics Pt 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Resp. inorganics Pt 3.80 0.00 3.20 0.04 0.56 0.00 0.00 0.00
Climate change Pt 3.66 2.92 0.66 0.02 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00
Radiation Pt 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Ozone layer Pt 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Ecotoxicity Pt 0.16 0.00 0.15 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Acidification/
Eutrophication Pt 0.54 0.00 0.47 0.01 0.07 0.00 0.00 0.00
Land use Pt 0.18 0.00 0.15 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Minerals Pt 0.04 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Fossil fuels Pt 13.66 0.00 12.52 0.13 1.00 0.00 0.01 0.00

Thus, it may be noted by Table 2 that the activity that contributes mostly to the
overall MSWMS environmental impacts (22.13 Pt) is transport, with a score of 17.23
Pt, which corresponds to 77.9%.
Then, it comes the landfill methane generation with 2.92 Pt and 13.2% of
contribution to the overall system. Landfilling and compaction activities have a score of
1.73, which corresponds to 7.8% for the environmental impact generated.
The landfilling construction activities contribute to 1.0% of the total
environmental impact, while the water and the electricity consumption, and the leachate
generation and treatment contribute each with less than 0.06% for the whole MSWMS
impacts.
The environmental impacts that mostly receive influence of the MSWMS study
are the fossil fuels (13.66 Pt), inorganic breathable (3.80Pt) and climate change (3.66
Pt), each one contributing with 61.73%, 17.18% and 16.52%, respectively.

926
Conclusions
Diagnoses and results generated on account of the present work made possible to
observe that the waste transport was the step that contributed most to the total
environmental impacts in MSWMS lifecycle. This result demonstrates the need for
studies considering the use of cleaner fuels, as well as new modes of collection and
transport.
The landfill that the city currently uses to dispose their waste, presented relevant
environmental impacts, particularly related to climate change arising from the methane
emission. Besides the possibility of reducing the amount of waste sent to it, mainly
through the recycling of organic matter, the energetic use of the gases generated in its
decomposition can be presented as a good alternative for reducing environmental
impact, providing also power generation and carbon credits.
Thus, there is the urgent need for progress in several actions where we can
highlight:
- Increasing activities of sorting and selective collection, which currently send to
recycling only 17 tons per day (3.36%) of wastes. However, 181 tons (35.8%) of wastes
are possible to be recycled, but they are being buried in the landfill daily.
- Recycling of organic matter (composting or anaerobic digestion), which is now
being sent entirely to the landfill (234.3 t / d) and represents 46.35% of the total waste
generated in the city.
Through these surveys and the perception of the transport great contribution to
MSWMS total environmental impacts, the more regionalized and decentralized actions
within the city - as composting in schools and neighborhoods, as well as locations for
waste delivery close to the sorting centers of recyclable materials - are presented as
critical to mitigating impacts of transport and final disposal stages.
This work presented a study in a city of about 600,000 people of a developing
country which may be replicated in other Brazilian cities, countries and continents with
the same characteristics.

927
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