Solid Waste Management Policy Implications on Waste Process Choices and Systemwide Cost and Greenhouse Gas Performance

Solid
waste management (SWM) is a key function of local government
and is critical to protecting human health and the environment. Development
of effective SWM strategies should consider comprehensive SWM process
choices and policy implications on system-level cost and environmental
performance. This analysis evaluated cost and select environmental
implications of SWM policies for Wake County, North Carolina using
a life-cycle approach. A county-specific data set and scenarios were
developed to evaluate alternatives for residential municipal SWM,
which included combinations of a mixed waste material recovery facility
(MRF), anaerobic digestion, and waste-to-energy combustion in addition
to existing SWM infrastructure (composting, landfilling, single stream
recycling). Multiple landfill diversion and budget levels were considered
for each scenario. At maximum diversion, the greenhouse gas (GHG)
mitigation costs ranged from 30 to 900 $/MTCO2e; the lower
values were when a mixed waste MRF was used, and the higher values
when anaerobic digestion was used. Utilization of the mixed waste
MRF was sensitive to the efficiency of material separation and operating
cost. Maintaining the current separate collection scheme limited the
potential for cost and GHG reductions. Municipalities seeking to cost-effectively
increase landfill diversion while reducing GHGs should consider waste-to-energy,
mixed waste separation, and changes to collection.