Greenhouse gas dynamics of municipal solid waste alternatives

Previous greenhouse gas studies comparing landfilling with combustion of municipal solid waste (MSW) are limited to examinations of the emissions weighted by their relative radiative activity. This paper adds another dimension by analyzing the atmospheric response to these emissions. The heart of the analysis is a time-dependent model using a perturbation analysis of the IS92a results of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Using as inputs the emissions from the two technologies, the model calculates atmospheric concentration histories. Scenarios for a landfill and a combustor envision each accepting 1000 Mg refuse/day for a 30-year operating period followed by a 70-year postclosure period. The baseline scenario examines the basic greenhouse impact of each technology. The other scenario adds active gas collection at the landfill and energy offset credits for avoided power plant carbon emissions. For both scenarios, CH4 and trace gases from the landfill persist in the atmosphere, and they are relatively potent at forcing IR heating. The combination of these features place the landfill much higher than previously expected on the greenhouse impact scale. For the baseline scenario, the time-integrated radiative forcing from landfilling is 115 times that of combustion, and this ratio is 45 for the second scenario.