Modeling Future Emissions from Municipal Solid Waste Incineration in Europe

Municipal waste generation and management are environmental, social, and economic challenges for Europe now and increasingly in the years to come. Economic development and population growth are the main drivers for waste generation. And, as they are still rising over the next decades, the amount of waste generated per year will increase along with them. Whereas landfilling is still the predominant treatment option for municipal waste in Europe, waste incineration is on the rise in many countries and forecasts for future emissions from waste incineration are needed.

Starting from a probabilistic and spatially-resolved model for municipal waste incineration in Europe a second version for prospective emission modeling has been developed. (1) By means of Formative Scenario Analysis (FSA) future scenarios reflecting socio-economic and demographic developments, technological evolution and different policy settings have been generated. (2) Based on these scenarios input parameter for the emission model like future waste amount, material composition of waste and flue gas cleaning technologies have been derived, and (3) prospective emissions from municipal waste incineration plants in Europe quantified.

Cooperation with

This project is linked to the research project external pageHEIMTSAcall_made (Health and Environmental Integrated Methodology and Toolbox for Scenario Assessment), running under the 6^th Framework Programme (thematic priority: Climate change and ecosystems) of the European Commission.

Cooperation within HEIMTSA: University of Stuttgart (IER), Norwegian Institute for Air Research - Poland (NILU Polska), European Commission Joint Research Centre Ispra (JRC).

Duration

2007-2011