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Reuse As a Waste Management and Climate Change Mitigation Strategy

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Reuse As a Waste Management and Climate Change Mitigation Strategy Transforming trash: reuse as a waste management and climate change mitigation strategy By Sintana Eugenia Vergara A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Energy and Resources in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Kara Nelson, chair Professor George Tchobanoglous Professor Arpad Horvath Professor Michael O’Hare Fall 2011 Abstract Transforming Trash: reuse as a waste management and climate change mitigation strategy By Sintana Eugenia Vergara Doctor of Philosophy in Energy and Resources University of California Berkeley Professor Kara Nelson, chair Waste reflects the culture that produces it and affects the health of the people and environment surrounding it. As urbanization and waste production increase on a global scale, cities are faced with the challenge of how to manage their waste effectively to minimize its negative impacts on public and environmental health. Using waste as a resource can offer a variety of environmental benefits, including climate change mitigation, though these benefits are variable and uncertain. My work begins with an overview of the relationship between solid waste and the environment, focusing on two trends over time and space: regionalization and formalization of waste management. Recognizing that appropriate waste management must be determined locally, I then focus on two places, one in the Global North, and one in the Global South, whose waste production and management differ tremendously, and quantify the climate benefits from reuse strategies at different scales using life-cycle assessment (LCA). In California, USA, where waste production and access to technology are abundant, I ask: how can the state minimize the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its municipal waste management? I conclude that source reduction and anaerobic digestion are the methods by which CA could most greatly and robustly reduce its waste emissions. I also find that waste LCA results are very sensitive to model assumptions, about system boundary, landfill behavior, and electricity generation, though the emissions from source reduction are robust to these inputs. In Bogotá, Colombia, where the municipal government is in the process of modernizing their recycling system, I ask: what are the GHG emission implications of this modernization? I find that the unregulated recycling system is more financially sustainable, more socially inclusive, and abates more greenhouse gas emissions than does the municipal system. The municipal system, on the other hand, conforms to aesthetic visions of a modern city, and provides workers with steady employment and benefits. A hybrid model could combine the incentives and efficiency of the informal system with the working conditions of the municipal one. In Bogotá and in California, modes of reuse – technologies or behaviors that use waste as a resource – offer waste management, environmental and climate benefits. 1 To my family. To my father, for your tireless work to protect our planet, for encouraging my pursuit of interesting questions, and for believing I could do anything; To my brother, for being a positive, brilliant force in the world, for your life-long friendship, and your curiosity; To my mother, my inspiration and my best friend, for your commitment to love, truth, and justice. i Acknowledgements. I feel very fortunate to have so many people to thank. First of all, I want to thank my family, for a wonderful life filled with love and support. Thank you to Martha and Tony, my second set of parents, for always leading by example and working towards a better world. Thank you, Pepe, for your love, for the beautiful yesterdays and the tomorrows to come. And Mariana, thanks for helping to make these years in Berkeley so lovely and so magical. And to all my friends, family, and colleagues: thank you for making this world more beautiful and more interesting. I want to thank the Energy and Resources Group, students and faculty, for this unparalleled intellectual community. What a tremendous gift and opportunity it has been to be among you for 6 years. Special thanks go to: • Stacy Jackson, for our weekly swims and the beautiful friendship that arose from them. You are an inspiration! • Malini Ranganathan, Anne Short, and Ashley Murray, for being model citizens, scholars, and women. • Isha Ray, for your guidance, generosity, and wit. • Alex Farrell, for encouraging my love of garbage, and for instilling in me principles of honest and effective scholarship. • Derek Lemoine, for broadening my academic horizons and always challenging me. • Josh, for the pranting (!), adventures, and friendship, and the Aptes, for sharing with me their cabin in the woods, where I prepared for my oral exams and wrote the final chapter of this dissertation. • Kevin and Andy for our writing group. • Niels, Pants, and Christian, for great friendships, backpacking trips, and conversations. I’d like to thank my committee – Kara Nelson, Arpad Horvath, Mike O’Hare, George Tchobanoglous – for your feedback, encouragement, and guidance. I also received wonderful research support from collaborators in Denmark and in Colombia. Special thanks to Anders Damgaard, Daniel Gomez, Marco Tulio Espinosa, Asociación de Recicladores de Bogotá, Silvio Ruiz Grisales, and many workers in the recycling chain who shared their time and stories with me. I am also grateful for generous funding from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Institute for International Studies (Simpson Fellowship), the US Student Fulbright Fellowship, the University of California Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Fellowship, Partners of the Americas Climate Change Fellowship, and the Fernström Fellowship. ii “The consumption of soap and paper, the quantity of letters exchanged, the extension of public libraries and the use made of them etc are often taken as a measure of the actual degree of civilization of a nation. An extensive and refined use made of the waste materials of industry and housekeeping might be considered with equal right as the measure of the degree of industrial development and capability.” - Regnier Ferdinand von Habsburg, 1876 (As quoted in Desrochers, 2002) iii Table of contents. Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Table of contents. ..................................................................................................................................................................... iv Table of figures. ........................................................................................................................................................................ vii Introduction. .............................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1. Municipal Solid Waste and the environment: a global perspective ...................................... 3 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 4 2. Solid Waste: Composition, Quantities, and Variability ................................................................................... 6 2.1. Quantities and Composition ............................................................................................................................... 6 2.2. Variability .................................................................................................................................................................... 9 2.3. Uncertainty and Data Quality .......................................................................................................................... 10 2.4. Variability in waste management ................................................................................................................... 10 3. Evolution of solid waste management ............................................................................................................. 11 3.1. Drivers in waste management development ............................................................................................ 11 3.2. Historical development of waste management systems ...................................................................... 12 3.2.1. Shift from local to regional, and informal to formal waste management: A look at the United States ....................................................................................................................................................................... 12 3.2.2. Evolution of the informal sector as a waste service provider ........................................................... 15 3.2.2.1. Informal public good provision ............................................................................................................... 15 3.2.2.2. The informal waste sector ......................................................................................................................... 17 3.3. Formalization of waste management in the Global South: A look at Bogotá, Colombia .......... 19 4. Current status of solid waste management: Technologies and Policies .............................................. 19 4.1. Technologies .........................................................................................................................................................
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