Measuring the Environmental Benefits Calculator (MEBCalc™)

MEBCalc™ (Measuring the Environmental Benefits Calculator) is Sound Resource Management’s proprietary software for computing the environmental footprint of a community’s municipal solid waste (MSW) management system, from collection through final disposition of each discarded product or packaging material. Environmental impacts covered in the footprint include climate change, public health (respiratory disease, cancer, and toxicity), ecosystem toxicity, waterway nutrification, and acid rain.

MEBCalc™ computes environmental costs and benefits of a community’s choices for waste diversion and disposal methods over the full life cycle of each product and packaging material in the community’s MSW, from resource extraction and refining through production to end-of-life fate. These economic values for the environment can then be compared to the traditional financial costs and benefits of each waste management method for each MSW component.

Specific input data characterizing a community’s MSW management system include:

Detailed composition quantities for recycled, composted and disposed wastes
Collection methods and quantities
Processing methods and quantities
Disposal methods (e.g., landfills that collect landfill gas and generate electricity, landfills that collect landfill gas and flare it, landfills handling relatively inert materials, waste-to-energy incineration facilities, and industrial boilers using processed MSW materials as fuel substitutes for natural gas or coal) and quantities
Hauling distances to disposal and processing facilities, as well as from processing facilities to end-user recycling markets
Transport mode (truck, rail, ship/barge) for hauling
Processing residue disposal rates
Distribution of processed recycled materials among end markets (e.g., recycled glass containers distribution among bottle reuse, glass container manufacturing, fiberglass manufacturing and construction aggregate)

Pollutant emissions profiles used in computing footprints are based on US EPA emissions data (e.g., AP-42 and WARM), reviewed life cycle assessment studies, Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Institute’s Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) model, and the peer reviewed scientific literature in life cycle assessment. Characterization of environmental impacts from specific pollutant emissions is based on US EPA’s TRACI (Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts) model for respiratory particulates, nutrifying pollutants and acidifying pollutants; and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s CalTOX model for toxics and carcinogens.

The following graph illustrates the different GHG emissions per metric ton of recyclables for the MSW system in Vancouver B.C. One metric ton of recycling or composting reduces GHG emissions on average by 1.8 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents.

Greenhouse Gas Emission Decreases per Metric Ton Recycled (2008)

(Click on the image below to see a larger graph.)

Sound Resource Management, Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Waste Management
Strategies with a Zero Waste Objective: Study of the Solid Waste Management System in Metro
Vancouver, British Columbia, June 2009.

An Objective of the MEBCalc™ model is to provide a life-cycle assessment of the environmental impacts associated with existing solid waste management systems and to provide guidance on future solid waste strategies. Life cycle analysis as applied to solid waste management systems is a technique for assessing cradle-to-grave environmental impacts associated with production, use, and discard of products and materials in our society. The methodology used takes into consideration a broad range of environmental impact factors including:

Climate change (e.g., greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons),
Human health (e.g., pollutants causing cancer, respiratory ailments and toxicity such as particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide, mercury, lead, and benzene).
Ecosystem toxicity (e.g., pollutants harmful to wildlife and wildlife habitats such as DDT, lead, mercury, zinc, and polyvinyl chloride).
Nutrification (e.g., pollutants released to soils and waterways which can increase algae growth and produce undesirable shifts to the ecosystem such as nitrogen and phosphorous.)
Acid rain (e.g., pollutants harmful to trees, soil, buildings, animals and humans such as sulfur, nitrogen and hydrogen compounds)

Measuring the Environmental Benefits Calculator (MEBCalc™)

Greenhouse Gas Emission Decreases per Metric Ton Recycled (2008)

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