A Management Framework for Municipal Solid Waste Systems and its Application to Food Waste prevention

Waste management is a complex task involving numerous waste fractions, a range of technological treatment options, and many outputs that are circulated back to society. A systematic, interdisciplinary systems management framework was developed to facilitate the planning, implementation, and maintenance of sustainable waste systems. It aims not to replace existing decision-making approaches, but rather to enable their integration to allow for inclusion of overall sustainability concerns and address the complexity of solid waste management. The framework defines key considerations for system design, steps for performance monitoring, and approaches for facilitating continual system improvements. It was developed by critically examining the literature to determine what aspects of a management framework would be most effective at improving systems management for complex waste systems. The framework was applied to food waste management as a theoretical case study to exemplify how it can serve as a systems model for complex waste systems, as well as address obstacles typically faced in the field. Its benefits include the integration of existing waste assessment models; the inclusion of environmental, economic, and social priorities; efficient performance monitoring; and a structure to continuously define, review, and improve systems. This framework may have broader implications for addressing sustainability in other disciplines

A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent

The magnitude of the food waste problem is difficult to comprehend. The U.S. spends $218 billion a year -- 1.3% of GDP -- growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is never eaten. The causes of food waste are diverse, ranging from crops that never get harvested, to food left on overfilled plates, to near-expired milk and stale bread. ReFED is a coalition of over 30 business, nonprofit, foundation, and government leaders committed to building a different future, where food waste prevention, recovery, and recycling are recognized as an untapped opportunity to create jobs, alleviate hunger, and protect the environment -- all while stimulating a new multi-billion dollar market opportunity. ReFED developed A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste as a data-driven guide to collectively take action to reduce food waste at scale nationwide.This Roadmap report is a guide and a call to action for us to work together to solve this problem. Businesses can save money for themselves and their customers. Policymakers can unleash a new wave of local job creation. Foundations can take a major step in addressing environmental issues and hunger. And innovators across all sectors can launch new products, services, and business models. There will be no losers, only winners, as food finds its way to its highest and best use

Innovating thermal treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW): Socio-technical change linking expectations and representations

This paper combines two theoretical perspectives: future technological expectations mobilising resources; and social representations assimilating new ideas through anchoring onto familiar frames of reference. The combination is applied to the controversial case of thermal-treatment options for municipal solid waste (MSW), especially via gasification technology. Stakeholders’ social representations set criteria for technological expectations and their demonstration requirements, whose fulfilment in turn has helped gasification to gain more favourable representations. Through a differential ‘anchoring’, gasification is represented as matching incineration’s positive features while avoiding its negative ones. Despite their limitations, current two-stage combustion gasifiers are promoted as a crucial transition towards a truly ‘advanced’ form producing a clean syngas; R&D investment reinforces expectations for advancing the technology. Such linkages between technological expectations and social representations may have broader relevance to socio-technical change, especially where public controversy arises over the wider systemic role of an innovation trajectory

Towards A regional resources strategy consultation

Report produced for emda to inform the agency's input into regional Waste and Resources Strategies. Reviews policy context, available data and views from key stakeholders

Environmental Implications of the Foodservice and Food Retail Industries

The growing size and importance of service sector industries in the U.S. economy raises questions about the suitability of the current environmental management system to deal with perhaps a changing set of environmental concerns. This paper analyzes the environmental impacts associated with the activities undertaken and influenced by two service sector industries—foodservice (e.g., restaurants) and food retail (e.g., grocery stores). This paper is not a definitive analysis of the magnitude of the environmental effects of these industries, but is intended to be a comprehensive survey of the types of environmental implications—positive and negative—of these two service sectors. The foodservice and food retail industries are components of a larger industrial system, the food marketing system, that extends from the production of food to the marketing of food products to consumers. The U.S. foodservice industry comprises an estimated 831,000 individual establishments, employs an estimated 11 million people (about 8.6% of the U.S. workforce), and is expected to have total sales of $376 billion in 2000. The U.S. food retail industry encompasses approximately 126,000 grocery stores, employs approximately 3.5 million people (about 2.7$449 billion in 1998. For this analysis, we use a simple conceptual framework that segregates the environmental impacts of these industries into three categories: direct, upstream, and downstream. We conclude that, while the direct environmental impacts (e.g., energy use, solid waste generation; air and water emissions; food safety concerns; refrigerants) of these industries are important to recognize and address, opportunities also exist for these industries to address their upstream and downstream environmental impacts.

Carbon Free Boston: Waste Technical Report

Part of a series of reports that includes: Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report; Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report; Carbon Free Boston: Technical Summary; Carbon Free Boston: Buildings Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Transportation Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Energy Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Offsets Technical Report; Available at http://sites.bu.edu/cfb/OVERVIEW: For many people, their most perceptible interaction with their environmental footprint is through the waste that they generate. On a daily basis people have numerous opportunities to decide whether to recycle, compost or throwaway. In many cases, such options may not be present or apparent. Even when such options are available, many lack the knowledge of how to correctly dispose of their waste, leading to contamination of valuable recycling or compost streams. Once collected, people give little thought to how their waste is treated. For Boston’s waste, plastic in the disposal stream acts becomes a fossil fuel used to generate electricity. Organics in the waste stream have the potential to be used to generate valuable renewable energy, while metals and electronics can be recycled to offset virgin materials. However, challenges in global recycling markets are burdening municipalities, which are experiencing higher costs to maintain their recycling. The disposal of solid waste and wastewater both account for a large and visible anthropogenic impact on human health and the environment. In terms of climate change, landfilling of solid waste and wastewater treatment generated emissions of 131.5 Mt CO2e in 2016 or about two percent of total United States GHG emissions that year. The combustion of solid waste contributed an additional 11.0 Mt CO2e, over half of which (5.9 Mt CO2e) is attributable to the combustion of plastic [1]. In Massachusetts, the GHG emissions from landfills (0.4 Mt CO2e), waste combustion (1.2 Mt CO2e), and wastewater (0.5 Mt CO2e) accounted for about 2.7 percent of the state’s gross GHG emissions in 2014 [2]. The City of Boston has begun exploring pathways to Zero Waste, a goal that seeks to systematically redesign our waste management system that can simultaneously lead to a drastic reduction in emissions from waste. The easiest way to achieve zero waste is to not generate it in the first place. This can start at the source with the decision whether or not to consume a product. This is the intent behind banning disposable items such as plastic bags that have more sustainable substitutes. When consumption occurs, products must be designed in such a way that their lifecycle impacts and waste footprint are considered. This includes making durable products, limiting the use of packaging or using organic packaging materials, taking back goods at the end of their life, and designing products to ensure compatibility with recycling systems. When reducing waste is unavoidable, efforts to increase recycling and organics diversion becomes essential for achieving zero waste. [TRUNCATED]Published versio

A life cycle optimization framework for the sustainable design of circular municipal solid waste management systems

RESUMEN: Los objetivos de esta tesis son desarrollar un marco metodológico para determinar la configuración óptima de los sistemas integrados de gestión de residuos bajo una perspectiva del ciclo de vida, e investigar si la economía circular contribuye a la reducción del consumo de recursos y los impactos ambientales y al crecimiento económico. El marco metodológico propuesto se aplicó a la gestión de residuos municipales orgánicos en la Comunidad Autónoma de Cantabria. El modelo del sistema se construyó combinando análisis de flujo de materiales y análisis de ciclo de vida (ambiental y económico). Se formuló un problema de optimización multi-objetivo para maximizar la circularidad de los nutrientes y minimizar el uso de recursos, los impactos ambientales y los costes de gestión de residuos. Los resultados sugieren que mejorar la circularidad de los recursos no implica necesariamente una reducción de costes, del consumo de recursos o de la emisión de cargas ambientales.ABSTRACT: The objectives of this dissertation are twofold: to develop a methodological framework to select the optimal configuration of integrated waste management systems under a life cycle perspective, and to investigate whether adopting a circular economy is an effective measure to attain increased economic benefits and a reduction in resource consumption and environmental impacts. The proposed framework – based the expansion of the boundaries of linear waste management systems – was applied to the management of municipal organic waste in the Spanish region of Cantabria. The system model was constructed combining material flow analysis, life cycle assessment and life cycle costing tools. A multi-objective optimization problem was formulated to maximize nutrient circularity and minimize resource use, environmental impacts and waste management costs. The results suggest that improving resource circularity can lead to increased costs and does not necessarily entail a decrease in the consumption of natural resources or the emission of environmental burdens.The author has been the recipient of two predoctoral fellowships granted by the University of Cantabria and the Spanish Ministry of Education (code FPU 15/01771). Her visit to NCSU was funded by a predoctoral mobility scholarship awarded by the University of Cantabria and by the research project CTQ2016-76231-C2-1-R, whereas her research at Cornell University was sponsored by the FPU program (code EST18/00007). She gratefully acknowledges this financial support

Municipal solid waste prevention: A review of market-based instruments in six European Union countries

This article focuses on quantitative prevention of municipal solid waste among the 28 member countries of the European Union. A strict definition of waste prevention is used, including waste avoidance, waste reduction at source or in process, and product reuse, while recycling is outside the scope of this article. In order to provide a solid overview of the European situation, the study selected six countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain). Several selection requirements have been considered, such as geographic location or municipal solid waste per capita production trends from 1995 to 2017. A review of prevention programmes and other national strategic documents has been conducted. Extended producer responsibility, Pay-As-You-Throw schemes, Deposit-Refund Systems and Environmental Taxes implementation among the selected countries have been studied in order to understand how these market-based instruments can be used for the sake of waste prevention. Each market-based instrument has been further analysed using the Drivers Pressures State Impact Response model. Based on the results of this study, the effectiveness of market-based instruments implementation is strictly related to the context they are enforced in. It is particularly important to tailor the market-based instruments based on the implementation area. Nevertheless, market-based instruments, which are now mostly meant to boost the recycling sector of the considered Member States, should be designed to improve waste prevention performances, ensuring the achievement of the highest level of waste hierarchy promoted by the European Union

Trade in environmental services: opportunities and constraints

The environmental services sector has been growing rapidly during the last two decades. Moreover, privatization and increasing outward-orientation of environmental services during the 1990s has made this sector an important service sector for negotiations under the new round of GATS.This study explores the nature and structure of the environmental services sector, both globally and in India, with particular focus on recent trends such as privatization and foreign investment in this sector. It also discusses issues of classification and definition which have occupied centre stage in the multilateral negotiations in this sector. The study assesses the implications of liberalizing environmental services in India, taking into account the country's strengths, weaknesses, and interests in this sector. Based on this assessment, it suggests a negotiating strategy for India in environmental services in the ongoing GATS 2000 negotiations. Given the special features of this sector, the study also suggests domestic reforms and regulations to ensure equity and sustainability along with economic efficiency in the provision of environmental services in India.