Environmental Accounting Of A Waste
Management System: Outcomes From The
Emergy Analysis
Author(s)
C. Granai, R. M. Pulselli & R. Ridolfi
Abstract
This paper shows an application of the emergy analysis to the waste management
system in the Province of Cagliari, Italy. It aims to consider the importance of
waste management within a territorial system by assessing the environmental
cost and gain due, directly and indirectly, to waste management processes. It also
aims to investigate different steps of this process looking for potential critical
points and available strategies for a sustainable waste management in its three
phases of waste gathering, waste treatment and waste disposing. A landfill and
an incinerator, located within the Province, are studied in order to consider their
own environmental efficiency and their role in the waste management process.
The emergy method (spelt with an \“m”) is based on the assessment of all the
inputs that supply the waste management system and its processes (emergy
means energy memory). The expected outcomes are in the form of a
comprehensive balance that shows the general behaviour of the system and its
parts. Through the emergy synthesis, flows of energy and matter that are used
within the process of waste management in the Province of Cagliari, are assessed
by a common unit, namely the solar energy joule, and compared to each other.
This is performed in order to evaluate how an integrated system including
incinerator and dumps works in order to make choices and to achieve a
sustainable waste management plan.
1 Introduction
Global environmental conditions are seriously threatened by man and its growing
production and consumption rates, especially in western countries. One aspect of
Keywords
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