International Conference on Chemical, Environmental and Biological Sciences (ICCEBS'2012) Penang, Malaysia

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Municipal

Waste Management System of Karaj
Nematollah Khorasani, Shahram Naghibzadeh, Mohsen Ghadiryanfar and Zia Badehian

scenario was inventoried and presented. Impact assessment of

life cycle was not conducted and by comparison the results of
life cycle inventory, suitable alternatives were chosen and
presented. Finally, distance reduction from the source had the
least environmental impact and was presented as the best
method of solid Waste Management [7]. Comparison the
different alternatives of Waste Management based on energy
saving and lesser environmental impacts in Rome, showed
that recycling the energy produced from Waste Management,
can supply the 15% of electrical energy required in this City
[12].

AbstractLCA is one of the decision support systems, which

can be considered for selecting the different approaches of Waste
Management. In this study LCA used to investigate the Waste
Management System of Karaj City. Three scenarios were defined and
life cycle inventory were applied using IWM_1 model. Thereupon,
the output of inventory was allocated to five impact classes included:
energy using, greenhouse gases, acidic gases, photochemical smog
and toxic gases. An ecological index was achieved from inventory
values for each scenario. From the environmental point of view,
results showed that recycling was one of the best alternatives for
Waste Management. Furthermore, composting has an important role
in alleviating the load of pollutants and energy usage in the Waste
Management system.

II. MATERIALS AND METHOD

Keywords Waste Management System, LCA, Karaj.

A. Waste condition in Karaj

Based on the last statistics of Karaj Municipal, the rate of
waste was 1389 ton/day at the end of 2008, 969 ton (70%) of
which were corruptible materials, sludge, and gathered
sediments of the city. Figure 1, shows the graph of this waste
[16].

I. INTRODUCTION

ASTE is one of the inevitable productions of our

society. Thus, Waste Management is a basic need of
any society. Regarding the rate of waste production and its
composition, different alternatives might be used for Waste
Management systems. Analyzing and comparison of the
environmental and technological efficiency of Waste
Management systems can be performed using environmental
assessment tools. LCA, the technique of investigating the
environmental aspects of one production or process over the
life period (from birth to burial), is one of the important
decision making tools. The approach dominating this study is
from cradle to grave [10]. In this concept, different stages of
conducting a process or services are studied [8].
One of the applications of LCA is the comparison of the
alternatives and scenarios of the Waste Management or
assessment of consequences of different structures settled in
the process of Municipal solid Waste Management. In Ankara,
LCA was used for comparison of different Waste
Management methods. In that study, five scenarios, which
were applied in Waste Management, were defined and
considered. Afterward, the environmental load of each

B. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

The LCA of Karaj solid Waste Management system was
done based on [2] in four steps (Figure 2).
C. Definition of the goals and scope
The object of this study was the life cycle assessment of the
current Waste Management System in Karaj in the
environmental viewpoint, and determining the priorities in
decisions in order to improve the Waste Management. The
borders of the studied system begin from the waste gathering
from houses and ends in the landfilling or composting in
factory and studied time framework is one year. Three
scenarios and relevant waste management alternatives in each
scenario were developed based on waste production rate (year
2008). Then alternative managements of each scenario were
compared based on their environmental load. The evaluated
aspects to estimate environmental loads were: water and air
pollution, energy consumption and residual waste.
Scenario1. Optimizing Collection System
According to this scenario, following three alternatives
were considered and compared.
A. Environmental load caused by landfilling of current
produced waste. B. Environmental load due to 10% reduction
of waste landfilling because of decrease in production in
origin without considering the 10% reduction of distance of

Nematollah Khorasani is in Department of Environment, Collage of

Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran
Shahram Naghibzadeh is in Department of Environment, Collage of
Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran
Mohsen Ghadiryanfar is in Department of Agricultural Machinery, Collage
of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.
(Email: ghadiryan@ut.ac.ir)
Zia Badehian is in Department of Forestry, Collage of Agriculture and
Natural resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran

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International Conference on Chemical, Environmental and Biological Sciences (ICCEBS'2012) Penang, Malaysia

D. Life Cycle Inventory

Life Cycle Inventory presented in three mentioned
scenarios, using the IWM_1 model [1]. This model is
composed of two economical and environmental sub models
[11]. In this study only the environmental sub model was
used.

transportation. C. Environmental load due to 10% reduction

of waste landfilling because of decrease in production in
origin by considering the 10% reduction of distance of
transportation.

E. Life Cycle Impacts Assessment

In Life Cycle Impacts Assessment result of life cycle
inventory, converts to the objective units and consequently
managerial form would be achieved. So far has been not
presented a unique methodology and standardization that
having global acceptance to perform life cycle impact
assessment [14]. Because at present the necessary information
in order to perform life cycle impact assessment does not exist
[13] and scientific methods for long time assessment, has been
not presented [9]. Practically, the only approach used since the
1990s has been "lower is better". In this approach it is
assumed that all values from one type of stress gathered
together - without considering the place and time of stress and
whether the levels of the stress more or less than the threshold
value or not and due to their inherent hazardous
characteristics cause harmful changes in the environment [15].
Overall, life cycle impact assessment is done according to the
standard of [5], through the four steps shown in figure 4.

Fig. 1 Different kind of waste [16].

Alternative managements considered in this study were to

understanding the role of reducing the produced Municipal
solid waste (reduction from origin due to enhancing the
quality of the consumed material) and consequently reducing
the number of vehicles needed and reduced the imposed load
on the environment.
Scenario2. Optimizing Transport System
According to this scenario following two alternatives were
considered and compared.
A. Environmental load caused by current waste rate
regarding the distance to the landfill. B. Environmental load
caused by current waste rate, regarding the 10% reduction in
distance to the landfill due to using of transfer stations.
Alternative Management considered in this scenario was to
understanding the role of transfer stations reduce or increase
in the imposed load on the environment.
Goals and Scope Definition
Interpretation

Life Cycle Inventory

Fig. 3 MSW management based on landfiling the whole current

produced waste (a). MSW management in Optimizing Collection
System (b). MSW management in Optimizing Transport System (c).
MSW management in Optimizing Waste Processing System (d).

Life cycle Impact Assessment

Fig. 2 The two-way relationship between interpretation and
the first three steps means that interpretation can be done at
each stage to correct the procedure [2].

Scenario3. Optimizing Waste Processing System

In this scenario, these three alternatives were considered
and compared.
A. Environmental load caused by landfilling of current
produced waste. B. Environmental load caused by 10%
reduction of waste due to composting. C. Environmental load
caused by 10% reduction of waste due to recycling.
Alternative managements considered in this scenario were
to understanding the role of the process of composting,
recycling and finally landfilling the Municipal Solid Waste in
imposed loads on the environment.

Raw data
Inventory
Index

Classifying &
Characterizing
Weighing

Fig. 4 stages of Life Cycle Impact Assessment

F. Interpretation
Interpretation is the final stage of LCA. In this stage data is
analyzed. Interpretation of the LCA includes reviewing all the
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International Conference on Chemical, Environmental and Biological Sciences (ICCEBS'2012) Penang, Malaysia

stages of LCA.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUTION
The model of IWM was run for each mentioned scenario. In
order to compare the each scenario and relevant alternatives
quantitatively, inventoried values was allocated to considered
impact classes. Then each impact class in inventoried values
was normalized based on the rate of managed waste in each
scenario and alternative. These values were multiplied by the
specifying factors to calculate the considered impacts of
inventoried values in each class based on the unit. In the next
stage, obtained indices in each class, were multiplied by the
relative weight of that class so that the indexes can be added
together. So environmental load of each class based on the
equivalent unit or ecological index, was calculated. Calculated
values as quantitative criteria to compare environmental load
of each scenario are shown in tables 1, 2 and 3 dimensionless.
Each scenario acquired lower point has lesser load.

Fig. 5 changes of energy use of impact classes, applying the

management in different phases of collecting, transportation and
processing

As it is clear in figure 6, composting emits the least amount

of greenhouse gas (scenario3-B) because if the composting
process is done properly, methane will not produce. Methane
has potential of greenhouse effect 21 times more than CO2
[6]. Furthermore, composting leads to a reduction of input
volume of waste to landfills [1]. Scenario 3-C has reduced the
emission of greenhouse gases by 12% per ton of managed
waste, showing the effective role of recycling in reduction of
greenhouse gases.

TABLE I
ENVIRONMENTAL LOAD OF THE SCENARIO (1) BASED ON ECOLOGICAL

INDEXES

Scenario 1-A

Scenario 1-B

Scenario 1-C

19.821

20.020

19.796

TABLE II
ENVIRONMENTAL LOAD OF THE SCENARIO (2) BASED ON ECOLOGICAL
INDEXES

Scenario 2-A

Scenario 2-B

19.821

19.618

TABLE III
ENVIRONMENTAL LOAD OF THE SCENARIO (3) ON THE BASIS OF
ECOLOGICAL INDEXES

Scenario 3-A

Scenario 3-B

Scenario 3-C

19.821

17.911

17.666

Fig. 6 Changes of classes of impact of greenhouse gases, applying

the management in different phases of collecting, transporting and
processing

Figure 5 shows that the greatest energy saving is related to

the share of 10 percent recycling (scenario3-C) that in
addition to energy saving, considers the waste as an invaluable
source.

Figure 7 shows that composting (scenario3-B), has reduced

the production of acidic gases by 11% per ton of managed.
This reduction is due to the reduction of H2S from anaerobic
decomposition of corruptible material and reduction of used
energy for the waste treatment. The highest rate of reduction
of acidic gases refers to the recycling scenario (scenario3-C).

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International Conference on Chemical, Environmental and Biological Sciences (ICCEBS'2012) Penang, Malaysia

Fig. 7 changes of impact class of acidic gases applying the

management in different phases of collecting, transportation and
processing

Fig. 9 changes of impact classes of toxic output of water and air

applying management in different phases of collecting, transportation
and processing

Figure 8 shows the role of transfer stations in waste

management, with a slight decline in production of smogcausing factors compared with reduction the waste in origin
(scenario 2-B) and has the slightly reductive trend compared
with the current state. Composting shows the lowest rate of
photochemical production due to the reasons described above
(scenario3-B). Recycling has reduced the amount of waste
transported into the landfill (scenario3-C) by (more than) 10%
per ton, showing the positive role of the recycling to in reduce
photochemical smog.

The ecological index of environmental load in each

scenario and alternative considered as the outcome of all
environmental actions and reactions of waste life cycle.
Results of this index explain the arrangement of the
environmental priorities of each phase and waste managerial
processes. As it clear, in figure 10, the effect of waste
management in each section of collecting, transporting and
processing were as follows:
By decreasing the waste weight transmitted to the landfill
with constant distance (scenario1-B) ecological indices
(normal value) have been decreased due to increasing the
vehicles fuel use based on each ton of waste managed.
Composting has decreased the ecological index (scenario3-B)
showing the effective role of composting in reduction of
environmental impact. The least value of ecological index
refers to the scenario of recycling processes (scenario3-C).

Fig. 8 Changes of impact classes of photochemical smog, applying

management in different phases of collecting, transportation and
processing

Figure 9 shows the similar trend shown in figure 4 with the

difference that the negative slope of toxic outputs from
scenarios 1-B, 1-C and 2-B has the slower trend so that
scenario 1-C and 2-B has lesser effect compared with
composting and recycling.

Fig. 10 Changes of ecological indexes applying management

in different phases of collecting, transportation and processing

IV. CONCLUSION
Regarding to the results recycling is one of the best
alternatives for Waste Management. Furthermore, composting
has an important role in alleviating the load of pollutants and
energy usage in the Waste Management system.
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