Environmental LCA of Household Hazardous Waste
The environmental LCA approach can be applied to the planning of Household Hazardous Waste (HHW). The quality of the environment and health decreases with the presence of HHW. How can the HHW management create minimal environmental impact?
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| Environmental LCA of Household Hazardous Waste |
Garbage in urban areas is increasing due to the population. In addition, the disposal of garbage dumps around the settlements has caused it to become a serious problem in various countries.
In some areas, household waste and hazardous waste are still mixed up. According to the laws in every country must be arranged in such a way that the information is dangerous and toxic.
Base on environmental LCA, Hazardous waste from household output is relatively small. However, due to population and urbanization, it is necessary to make comprehensive supervision and management
Many people do not know that household activities can produce hazardous and hazardous waste and the surrounding environment. Many household products contain the same chemicals as industrial waste and can cause environmental pollution.
In Developing Country, Hazardous waste treatment is also focused on the waste processing industry. Household and residential hazardous waste received less attention. This shows that no sustainable efforts have been made to treat Hazardous household waste. Several City is a metropolitan city whose population continues to increase every year.
The impact of population growth is an increase in the consumption of products categorized as hazardous household waste. This is related to the lifestyle and comfort of the community in using Hazardous category household waste products so that it has an impact on the dependence on the use of Hazardous category household waste products.
Although the presence of Hazardous household waste in the appearance of waste from urban communities is relatively small, the continued growth of the population will result in no waste originating from household Hazardous waste.
In addition, Several City still uses a controlled TPA system, where garbage or garbage is only dumped and from time to time it will be backfilled with soil. Base on environmental LCA The accumulation of waste will cause negative impacts such as soil pollution and groundwater pollution around the landfill.
The hazard posed is household hazardous waste products that are categorized into groundwater such as deep wells, surface water such as shallow wells and rivers, or direct contact with humans or other living creatures.
The impact of household Hazardous waste is exposure to health and a decrease in environmental quality. From a health perspective and environmental LCA, it is stated that one of the Hazardous household wastes is toxic.
What is typical household waste?
From the research results, it can be seen that there are problems related to the problem of battery disposal in the landfill with environmental damage and health impacts. This is due to the killing that is dumped into the landfill contributing to the decline in the quality of leachate which contains large amounts of metals, mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), manganese (Mn), and zinc (Zn).
Considering the potential impact of household Hazardous waste on health and a decrease in environmental quality, the management of household hazardous waste must be started properly. This is based on the waste management model in big cities in Developing Country, which mostly uses the old paradigm of transporting and dumping (centralization) and prioritizing the downstream sector.
Another thing that also needs to be highlighted is the control over the management of Hazardous waste from the city government as a controller. In addition, there is no definite operational formula yet, so the community household Hazardous waste management system is interpreted individually as a habit.
It can be seen that there is no definite operational formula regarding the management of Hazardous household waste. Therefore, a household hazardous waste management approach is needed.
The approach used is the Life Cycle Approach (LCA). Environmental LCA is a systematic approach to identify, measure and assess the environmental impact of the entire life cycle process being evaluated.
The environmental LCA approach can be applied to the planning of waste treatment systems, including household hazardous waste. The use of the environmental LCA approach provides an advantage to create the most effective strategy (scenario) in treating Hazardous household waste with environmental impacts related to greenhouse emission (GHG) indicators.
The elimination of Hazardous household waste generation refers to SNI 19-3694-1994 and sampling is carried out for 8 consecutive days per district. The approach used to formulate a model/scenario systemic management of hazardous household waste (HHWM) related to the indicator of GWP impact of greenhouse gas emissions.
Result and Discussion
the waste management process in the HHW processing industry provides the highest contribution compared to HHW management in the metal (cans) recycling industry. The results of environmental LCA show that the HHW waste treatment process in the recycling industry provides an environmental impact in the form of a lower GWP compared to the combustion process in only one form in the incinerator and processing in the HHW processing industry.
Base on environmental LCA, it is not only limited to the final output produced, but input of raw materials and processes is also included in the environmental impact assessment.
For example, for a HHW management system with a recycling system for HHW the characteristics of plastic and metal types contribute to the GWP impact of 6.103 kg CO2 eq with the raw material / material used is 18.74 kg. Furthermore, the material is converted into 1 ton of recycled material and produces a GWP impact of 325.67 kg CO2 eq.
Conclusion
the best scenario in Household B3 Waste Management (HHWM) based on the environmental LCA approach is HHW recycling. The environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions aproximately 135.25 kg CO₂ eq.
Base on Sensitivity analysis we can replace electricity that is more environmentally friendly, an alternative policy option is to use electrical energy from natural gas. This scenario is possible to be implemented in Developing Country and saves a GWP around 6.82 kg CO2 eq or around 5.04%.
Also read: Life Cycle Analysis of Concrete in India