The global impact of Black Carbon Emissions from the Uncontrolled Burning of Solid Waste Natalia Reyna Bensusan Professor Stephen Smith Professor David Wilson Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering s.r.smith@imperial.ac.uk , n.reyna14@imperial.ac.uk 6th International Conference on Sustainable Solid Waste Management, Naxos, Greece BACKGROUND Waste and Climate Change Avoided E missions Virgin Natural Resources T ransformation of R esources (L CA) GHG and S L CP E missions B C T ransportation of materials CO 2 + E xtraction of raw materials R educed Manufacturing carbon sequestration + R ecycling Increased Fossil and reusing Using carbon fuels sequestration B C avoided E nergy B ackyard waste burning B C N 2 O + CO 2 Waste transport Waste to energy C Fossil CO 2 + CH 4 fuels avoided Carbon storage Composting in soil CH 4 + L andfilling CH 4 Fossil fuels Carbon in long- avoided term storage in If CH4 is landfill recovered Open dumping Uncontrolled B C burning of waste 1
BACKGROUND W hat is BC? • BC is formed from incomplete combustion of biomass or fossil fuels • It is a short lived climate pollutant (SLCP): life time varies from a few days to a few weeks • Its average GWP is 2200 (20 year horizon) • The GWP of methane is 86 (20 year horizon) THEREFORE … BC reductions would reduce the rate of warming soon after measures are implemented BACKGROUND Open burning of waste (OBW) PUBLISHED ESTIMATIONS FOR OBW 620 million t year -1 of waste burned in backyards* 350 million t year -1 of waste burned in dumpsites* 270 thousand premature deaths per year** BC emissions from OBW are not included in emission inventories (IPCC, etc.): Emission factors (EF)*** have Activity levels are difficult high degrees of uncertainties to estimate They were developed with 2-3 No data on open burning is collected measurements Fires are small and difficult to detect They are relevant only to certain waste with satellites compositions *** Emission Factor = mass of a pollutant emitted per unit mass of material burned SOURCES *Wiedinmyer et al. (2014) **Kodros et al. (2016) 2
OBJECTIVES 1. To develop a methodology to measure BC EFs for open burning waste 2. To measure BC EFs for single waste types 3. To measure mixed waste BC EFs for a developing country (Mexico) 4. To calculate regional EFs based on the waste composition in different areas of the world 5. To place the BC emissions from open burning into context (compare to CH 4 ). FIELDWORK Waste characterisation, surveys and interviews 3
LABORATORY EXPERIMENTATION Determining EFs for open burning of waste 1 Waste combustion emission sampler Filter with BC emissions Waste samples LABORATORY EXPERIMENTATION Filters with BC: Difference in ATN 2 3 Sunset EC/OC Analyser Magee Transmissometer OT21 ATN EC ≈ BC ATN 35.8 106.1 181.5 218.0 466.1 Filter 4
RESULTS Analysis of Com bustion Patterns Emissions Total Remaining Samples Fraction Captured/Sa Combustible Volatile Waste type Repetitions with Burned mple ATN Mass Fraction ATN>500* (%) Burned (%) (%) (%) 62 (±77) n=23 0 64.9 1.6 90.5 24.4 Paper & cardboard 264 (±122) n=15 2 57.1 0.9 93.7 41.6 Garden 363 (±114) n=14 5 51.1 1.1 99.7 48.8 Textiles 46 (±67) n=17 0 23.8 0.3 84.3 59.8 LDPE 147 (±193) n=20 4 40.2 0.6 99.9 58.9 HDPE 383 (±148) PET n=17 9 9.9 1 99.6 92.8 328 (±162) Polystyrene n=14 4 21.3 3 100 79.5 ATN>500 = filters marked as "Too Dark" by OT21 RESULTS EC/ BC and ATN relationship y = 2.16x 2 + 1.93x + 0.31 80 BC ( μ g cm -2 ) 60 r² = 0.98 40 P <0.001 20 0 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 ln (Io/I) = ATN/100 Using waste BC EF Type of waste (g kg -1 , std. dev.) composition data for Individual waste fractions each region Paper and cardboard 0.005 ( ± 0.01) Organic waste 0.245 ( ± 0.21) Textiles 42.032 ( ± 27.75) Constructed Region EF (g kg -1 ) LDPE 0.013 ( ± 0.02) HDPE 0.035 ( ± 0.04) AFR 1.15 EAP 1.11 PET 0.715 ( ± 0.80) ECA 1.21 Polystyrene 92.462 ( ± 81.33) SAR 1.16 Mixed waste fractions MENA 0.92 Mexico 2.395 ( ± 1.16 ) LCR 1.47 Case Area 1 (Huejutla, Hidalgo) 1.805 ( ± 1.07 ) OECD 1.27 Case Area 2 (Juchitán, Oaxaca) 0.823 ( ± 0.90 ) 5
Methane vs. black carbon ≈ 4.7% of total CO 2 Eq (a) EF CH 4 emissions (MTCO 2 Eq Wet t -1 ) globally 1.59 0.63 2.3 BC (b) Waste (d) Food Garden Paper & Emission Emissions (e) CH 4 burned waste waste cardboard BC CO 2 Eq / Factors CH 4 CO 2 Eq (MTCO 2 Eq x 10 6 ) BC (c) BC (t x 10 6 ) (t x 10 6 ) (t x 10 6 ) (t x 10 6 ) (kg t -1 ) (t x 10 6 ) (MTCO 2 Eq x 10 6 ) AFR 1.15 4 107.3 0.12 270.9 23.1 15.1 9.7 68.3 EAP 1.11 3.5 396.6 0.44 971.4 99.1 47.6 39.7 278.5 ECA 99.2 1.21 0.12 264.6 9.7 27.2 13.9 64.4 4.1 SAR 1.16 5.4 153.8 0.18 393.9 31.6 13.6 6.2 72.9 MENA 0.92 2.6 61.5 0.06 125 16.9 3.7 8.6 49.0 LAC 143.7 1.47 0.21 463.4 28.0 21.5 23.0 110.9 4.2 OECD 1.27 3 10.1 0.01 28.3 0.6 1.6 3.2 9.4 WORLD - 3.8 (average) 972.2 0 2,518 209.0 130.3 104.2 653.3 a) Emission factors for CH 4 in metric tonnes of CO 2 equivalent per wet ton of waste are taken from the Waste Reduction Model (WARM) (US EPA, 2015). b) Source: Wiedinmyer et al. (2014). c) Average global warming potential (GWP) for BC in a 20 year horizon is 2200 (Bond et al., 2013, Fuglestvedt et al., 2010). d) It was considered that 50% of the food waste is burned as feeding waste to animals and using food waste for compost is a common practice in developing countries. e) Methane emissions from equivalent disposal of waste fractions in landfill. AFR : Africa Region MENA: Middle East and North Africa EAP: East Asia and the Pacific LAC: Latin America & the Caribbean ECA : Eastern and Central Asia OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development SAR: South Asia Region CONCLUSIONS 1 BC EFs based on waste composition can be used to estimate local, regional and global impacts from open burning of waste (OBW) BC from open burning contributes almost 5% of global CO 2 Eq emissions BC (CO 2 Eq) emissions from waste burning are 4 times larger compared to CH 4 (CO 2 Eq) emissions from the decomposition of equivalent amounts of combustible biodegradable waste in dumpsites 6
CONCLUSIONS 2 Reducing OBW would have a significant and immediate impact on improving air quality, respiratory health, and reducing climate change Current inventories significantly underestimate the global emissions from the waste management sector by not including OBW. THANK YOU n.reyna14@imperial.ac.uk REFERENCES Kodros, J. K., Wiedinmyer, C., Ford, B., Cucinotta, R., Gan, R. & Magzamen, S. 2016. Global burden of mortalities due to chronic exposure to ambient PM2.5 from open combustion of domestic waste. Environmental Research Letters, 11 Wiedinmyer, C., Yokelson, R. J. & Gullett, B. K. 2014. Global emissions of trace gases, particulate matter, and hazardous air pollutants from open burning of domestic waste. Environment, Science and Technology, 48 , 9523-9530 7
RESULTS Com parison of Em ission Factors Emission factors (g kg -1 waste) Number of test Burn 1 Burn 2 Burn 3 Average 0.65 Christian et al. (2010) 0.38 0.92 0.63 3.3 Stockwell et al. (2016) 0.56 (wet conditions) 6.04 (dry conditions) - Jayarathne et al. (2017) 2.59* - - - Mixed waste types (n=repetitions) Mexico (n=11) Huejutla (n=13) Juchitán (n=16) Average This research 1.67 2.4 1.81 0.82 *Three samples were measured but only the average EF was reported. AVERAGE VALUES 1.98 vs. 1.67 Other studies This research 8
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