Tool measures environmental impact of municipal waste management

Researchers of the UAB group Sostenipra, with Inèdit Innovació (spin-off of the UAB Research Park), directed by lecturer of the School of Engineering Xavier Gabarrell, have developed a calculator which can assess the environmental impact of a waste treatment system in any municipality by using carbon footprint as an indicator. The new tool can be downloaded free. 

The tool “CO2 ZW CARBON FOOTPRINT” calculates environmental impacts using the CO2 footprint indicator, i.e., measuring the total emission of greenhouse gases while taking into account the waste management processes carried out by municipalities.

The calculator allows the monitoring of gas emissions by following the methodology proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) to conduct inventory at national level, as well as forecast the reduction of these emissions when changes are implemented in waste treatment processes. Therefore, municipalities can use this useful tool in decision-making processes to evaluate the efficacy of current management methods and to design future waste management programmes.

To calculate the footprint, the tool demands specific data from each municipality: the total amount of residue generated in one year (or number of inhabitants to calculate the average); the composition of solid residues (if not available, the tool uses average values); the fraction of residue separated to be processed; the percentage of impurities found in the organic fraction (the tool also used average values when this information is missing); the amount of biogas captured by the dump; greenhouse gas emissions created by electricity, according to a mixture of sources used; as well as data on the final destination of treated residues and efficacy of recycling plants.

The project, funded by the European Commission, is focused particularly on municipalities as well as on Mediterranean countries, but it can also be used at all levels, regional and national, and all countries, by simply providing all data necessary on waste management.

The calculator can be downloaded at the following site:
http://sostenipra.ecotech.cat/register.php