Life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in Belize
In 2015, the Belize Solid Waste Management Authority launched the Solid Waste Management Project II to enhance solid waste management practices with a particular focus on biopolymers such as polylactic acid (PLA). This study aims to quantify the environmental impact of four potential waste managemen...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/adf129 |
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| author | Dennis J Newby Maya A El-Ajouz Anthony M Mai Jr Shakira R Hobbs |
| author_facet | Dennis J Newby Maya A El-Ajouz Anthony M Mai Jr Shakira R Hobbs |
| author_sort | Dennis J Newby |
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| description | In 2015, the Belize Solid Waste Management Authority launched the Solid Waste Management Project II to enhance solid waste management practices with a particular focus on biopolymers such as polylactic acid (PLA). This study aims to quantify the environmental impact of four potential waste management strategies for PLA in Belize: landfill, landfill expansion, cogeneration, and anaerobic digestion. A life cycle assessment was conducted with a functional unit of 1 kg of PLA at the end-of-life for each waste management scenario. Data from Ecoinvent V3.5 and process parameters from SimaPro V9.0 were collected and modeled in Microsoft Excel. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses were assessed. Environmental impact results showed that operational requirements contributed the most to the impacts for anaerobic digestion, while the landfill scenarios were dominated by transportation requirements, and the cogeneration scenario was dominated by material requirements. The anaerobic digestion scenario had the lowest net environmental impacts across half of the assessed categories, primarily due to energy generation from biogas production. Environmental impacts can be reduced by diverting PLA waste from landfills to anaerobic digestion and cogeneration facilities. Additionally, uncertainty was the lowest in the anaerobic digestion scenario for most of the assessed environmental impact categories. Sensitivity analysis revealed that environmental impact results were highly influenced by key model assumptions, such as those for PLA degradation, transportation distances, and technology-specific parameters, indicating that further data collection is necessary to enhance the accuracy of these results. Integrated solid waste management scenarios that incorporated combinations of anaerobic digestion and cogeneration were found to have lower net environmental impacts compared to the business-as-usual scenario. This study underscores the need for further research to evaluate the feasibility of integrating these waste management alternatives into Belize’s waste management system. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-db03d2ef871846ee8e6d08a99bd421d1 |
| institution | Matheson Library |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
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| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj-art-db03d2ef871846ee8e6d08a99bd421d12025-07-25T05:29:16ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262025-01-0120808407610.1088/1748-9326/adf129Life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in BelizeDennis J Newby0Maya A El-Ajouz1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6616-9816Anthony M Mai Jr2Shakira R Hobbs3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8146-1436Civil Engineering Department, University of Kentucky , Lexington, KY 40506, United States of AmericaCivil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of California , Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, United States of AmericaBelize Solid Waste Management Authority , 70 George Price Hwy, Belmopan, BelizeCivil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of California , Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, United States of AmericaIn 2015, the Belize Solid Waste Management Authority launched the Solid Waste Management Project II to enhance solid waste management practices with a particular focus on biopolymers such as polylactic acid (PLA). This study aims to quantify the environmental impact of four potential waste management strategies for PLA in Belize: landfill, landfill expansion, cogeneration, and anaerobic digestion. A life cycle assessment was conducted with a functional unit of 1 kg of PLA at the end-of-life for each waste management scenario. Data from Ecoinvent V3.5 and process parameters from SimaPro V9.0 were collected and modeled in Microsoft Excel. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses were assessed. Environmental impact results showed that operational requirements contributed the most to the impacts for anaerobic digestion, while the landfill scenarios were dominated by transportation requirements, and the cogeneration scenario was dominated by material requirements. The anaerobic digestion scenario had the lowest net environmental impacts across half of the assessed categories, primarily due to energy generation from biogas production. Environmental impacts can be reduced by diverting PLA waste from landfills to anaerobic digestion and cogeneration facilities. Additionally, uncertainty was the lowest in the anaerobic digestion scenario for most of the assessed environmental impact categories. Sensitivity analysis revealed that environmental impact results were highly influenced by key model assumptions, such as those for PLA degradation, transportation distances, and technology-specific parameters, indicating that further data collection is necessary to enhance the accuracy of these results. Integrated solid waste management scenarios that incorporated combinations of anaerobic digestion and cogeneration were found to have lower net environmental impacts compared to the business-as-usual scenario. This study underscores the need for further research to evaluate the feasibility of integrating these waste management alternatives into Belize’s waste management system.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/adf129polylactic acidmunicipal waste disposallife cycle assessmentBelize |
| spellingShingle | Dennis J Newby Maya A El-Ajouz Anthony M Mai Jr Shakira R Hobbs Life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in Belize Environmental Research Letters polylactic acid municipal waste disposal life cycle assessment Belize |
| title | Life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in Belize |
| title_full | Life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in Belize |
| title_fullStr | Life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in Belize |
| title_full_unstemmed | Life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in Belize |
| title_short | Life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in Belize |
| title_sort | life cycle assessment of polylactic acid municipal waste disposal in belize |
| topic | polylactic acid municipal waste disposal life cycle assessment Belize |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/adf129 |
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