How to set municipal solid waste composition?

Question

Dear all,

I am working with municipal solid waste management in Brazil. I have data about the composition of the MSW, but the process in Ecoinvent do not allow to change waste composition. It is a fix percentage for each material (paper, plastic, metals, etc.). How can I set my own composition?

Thanks,
Jonatas

Answer 1

You can create your own process with the correct composition, and then, if you want to use ecoinvent, link directly each waste fraction to the specific ecoinvent waste treatment process (which typically is about treatment of one specific waste fraction, "clean", so to say). Ideally, you can modify the datasets or develop own ones since the waste management might be different, e.g. with grey market manual sorting etc.

Best wishes,

Andreas

Comments

I am modelling a sanitary landfill in Brazil. The municipal solid waste is dumped all mixed into the landfill. The ecoinvent process for landfill treatment does not have a specific flow for each component (only graphical paper, mixed plastic and a few others). There is no component for cardboard paper, metals, electronics, organic matter, or specific plastics (PET, PEAD, etc.).

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Hello openLCA team and friends,

I would also ask, how to develop own dataset? I have data on some waste composition, waste amounts, and etc.  How to build the dataset?

Is there any example to develop a correct composition by eco-invent? I also using Eco-invent 3.6, which is button or menu should I click?

Thank you very much,
Your response is highly appreciated

Best regards,
Ade