Greenhouse Gases Life Cycle Assessment (GHGLCA) as a decision support tool for municipal solid waste management in Iran

Background: one of the most problems in developing countries is the integrated waste management and theeffects on greenhouse gases (ghg) emission, life cycle assessment (lca) is used in this paper as a decisionsupporting tool in planning municipal solid waste (msw) managements.methods: in this paper the epa’s waste reduction model (warm) that provide ghg emission factors for wastestream components that are based on life cycle inventory (lci) framework were used and the msw managementmethods comprised in seven scenarios.results: the amount of ghg which was generated from iran’s waste sector estimated about 17836079 metric tonsof carbon dioxide equivalents (mt co2e) in this study. the lowest amount of ghg was generated by lfg capturesystem with energy recovery (557635 mt co2e), while incineration of materials being sent to landfill (1756823 mtco2e), landfill gas (lfg) capture system with flaring (2929150 mt co2e) and improved source reduction andrecycling (4780278 mt co2e) emitted fewer ghg than the other scenarios. lowest levels of gross energyconsumption occur in source reduction with recycling and composting (?89356240 mega british thermal unit, mbtu), recycling and composting (?86772060 m btu) as well as improved source reduction with recycling andcomposting (?54794888 m btu).conclusions: it appears that recycling and composting each offer significant ghg emissions and energyconsumption reductions (scenarios 4, 5 and 6). upon of the ghg emission and energy consumption resultsconcluded that improved source reduction and recycling scenario has been the balanced and appropriatetechnology for handling the solid waste streams in municipalities.