Municipal solid waste management in Russia: potentials of climate change mitigation

The goal of this study was to assess the impact of the introduction of various waste management methods on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from these activities. The assessment was carried out on the example of the Russian waste management sector. For this purpose, three scenarios had been elaborated for the development of the Russian waste management sector: Basic scenario, Reactive scenario and Innovative scenario. For each of the scenarios, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated during waste management was calculated. The calculation was based on the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. The results of the greenhouse gas net emissions calculation are as follows: 64 Mt CO2-eq./a for the basic scenario, 12.8 Mt CO2-eq./a for the reactive scenario, and 3.7 Mt CO2-eq./a for the innovative scenario. An assessment was made of the impact of the introduction of various waste treatment technologies on the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions generated in the waste management sector. An important factor influencing the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from landfills is the recovery and thermal utilization of 60% of the generated landfill gas. The introduction of a separate collection system that allows to separately collect 20% of the total amount of generated municipal solid waste along with twofold increase in the share of incinerated waste leads to a more than threefold reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions from the waste management sector.