Accounting Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Municipal Solid Waste Treatment by Composting: A Case of Study Bolivia

Abstract

Waste generation is one of the multiple factors affecting the environment and human health that increases directly with growing population and social and economic development. Nowadays, municipal solid waste disposal sites and their management create climate challenges worldwide, with one of the main problems being high biowaste content that has direct repercussions on greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. In Bolivia, as in the most developing countries, dumps are the main disposal sites for solid waste. These places usually are non-engineered and poorly implemented due to social, technical, institutional and financial limitations. Composting plants for treatment of biowaste appear as an alternative solution to the problem. Some Bolivian municipalities have implemented pilot projects with successful social results; however, access to the economic and financial resources for this alternative are limited. In order to encourage the composting practice in the other Bolivian municipalities it is necessary to account for the GHG emissions. The aim of the present study compiles and summarizes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines methodology and some experimental procedures for accounting of the greenhouse gases emissions during the biowaste composting process as an alternative to its deposition in a dump or landfill. The GHG emissions estimation results by open windrow composting process determined in the present study show two scenarios: 38% of reduction when 50% of the biowaste collected in 2019 was composted; and 12% of reduction when 20% of the biowaste was composted.