Waste Management Research: Projects
Life-Cycle and Economic Impact Assessment of Waste Conversion Technologies
Client/Agency
California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB)
Description
California statutes require CIWMB to prepare a report on new and emerging technologies to convert organic wastes to usable energy and products, referred to as conversion technologies (CTs).
In support of CIWMB, we assembled a team of experts in MSW economics experts, conversion technologies, and solid waste management. The RTI team analyzed the potential life-cycle and market impacts of using CTs for managing the unrecovered (i.e., currently landfilled) portion of MSW in the Los Angeles and San Francisco regions. For each of three CTs -- catalytic cracking, concentrated acid hydrolysis, and gasification -- our team
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Determined life cycle environmental impacts and compared them to those of existing MSW management practices, including landfill disposal, composting, recycling, and waste-to-energy combustion
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Estimated the economic, financial, and institutional impacts on the recycling and composting markets
Our team collected waste and economic data from the Los Angeles and San Francisco regions and CT data from technology vendors and patent applications. We constructed computer models to estimate the life-cycle environmental and market impacts of the CTs. CIWMB incorporated the study findings in its report to state legislature and used them to develop recommendations regarding the future implementation of CTs in the state.
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