An environmental-economic assessment of residential curbside collection programs in Central Florida
File(s)RCC paper - Manuscript - clean copy.pdf (407.61 KB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Maimoun, MA
Reinhart, DR
Madani, K
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Inefficient collection and scheduling procedures negatively affect residential curbside collection (RCC) efficiency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and cost. As Florida aims to achieve a 75% recycling goal by 2020, municipalities have switched to single-stream recycling to improve recycling efficiency. Waste diversion and increased collection cost have forced some municipalities to reduce garbage collection frequency. The goal of this study was to explore the trade-offs between environmental and economic factors of RCC systems in Florida by evaluating the RCC system design of 25 different Central Florida communities. These communities were grouped into four sets based on their RCC garbage, yard waste, and recyclables collection design, i.e., frequency of collection and use of dual-stream (DS) or single-stream (SS) recyclables collection system. For the 25 communities studied, it was observed that RCC programs that used SS recyclables collection system recycled approximately 15–35%, by weight of the waste steam, compared to 5–20% for programs that used DS. The GHG emissions associated with collection programs were estimated to be between 36 and 51 kg CO2eq per metric ton of total household waste (garbage and recyclables), depending on the garbage collection frequency, recyclables collection system (DS or SS), and recyclables compaction. When recyclables offsets were considered, the GHG emissions associated with programs using SS were estimated between −760 and −560, compared to between −270 and −210 kg CO2eq per metric ton of total waste for DS programs. These data suggest that RCC system design can significantly impact recyclables generation rate and efficiency, and consequently determine environmental and economic impacts of collection systems. Recycling participation rate was found to have a significant impact on the environmental and financial performance of RCC programs. Collection emissions were insignificant compared to the benefits of recycling. SS collection of recyclables provided cost benefits compared to DS, mainly due to faster collection time.
Date Issued
2016-05-26
Date Acceptance
2016-04-24
Citation
Waste Management, 2016, 54, pp.27-38
ISSN
0956-053X
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
27
End Page
38
Journal / Book Title
Waste Management
Volume
54
Copyright Statement
© 2016 Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Subjects
Curbside collection
Dual-stream
Emissions
Florida
Recycling
Single-stream
Environmental Sciences
0907 Environmental Engineering
Publication Status
Published