Environmental Evaluation of Waste Management Alternatives by LCA in Chile

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) has been internationally used for comparing environmental impacts associated with different management scenarios of municipal solid waste (MSW). The present study compared three MSW management scenarios for the city of Coyhaique, in the Chilean Patagonia, in order to identify the most environmentally suitable alternative to manage them: MSW direct landfill disposal (Scenario 0), direct disposal in sanitary landfill and landfill gas recovery for energy production (Scenario 1), and biogas recovery through a digester, for the energy production (Scenario 2). Results show that Scenario 0 presents the greatest negative impacts, whereas Scenario 1 is the major positive impacts foreseen in the indicators evaluated, making it the most environmentally friendly alternative.