Technical Development of Waste Sector in Sweden: Survey

MASTER’S THESIS IN ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES RESEARCH
future. LCA study concludes that, P-G is important emerging technology for Sweden. One of the
main reason for lower environmental burden from P-G process is the controlled use of air during
the combustion. Another reason is that P-G produces higher amount of heat and electricity
compared to incineration. Nevertheless, P-G has some limitations which should be considered
while planning for waste management plan in future. Air Particulate Cleaning residues (APC) that
is trapped in the syngas cleaning process, the solid residue from the combustion and the emission
are needed to be improved further for sustainable waste management.
In the study, LCA is used as a tool to identify environmental burden from emerging technology.
However, socio-economic issues can be analyzed by other tools like cost benefit analysis (CBA)
or multi-criteria decision analysis. Life cycle costing, though not considered in this study, is one
of the vital tools for decision making processes while selecting any particular technology in
future. A comparative analysis of different waste management technology by LCC or other
decision support tools is thus recommended.
Key points from the research findings are listed below:
• Sweden needs to focus more in innovative production and consumption to reduce the
volume of waste in future.
• Waste management sector is a multi-sectored; influence by multi-shareholders’ decision
support. Therefore, for sustainable waste management and future technical development,
the roles of the key actors are needed to be understood clearly.
• It is important to promote emerging technology for future development. Continuous
research and development work is needed to find sustainable waste management
technology.
• The study identified P-G process as a potential emerging waste treatment technology.
Sweden can take in consideration while planning for future waste treatment technology.
• For better understanding of waste treatment technology, the implementation of different
system support tool like LCC, CBA are important. Therefore, implementation of decision
support tool should be made mandatory by law for waste management system in future.
It can thus be concluded that, single solution by a single technology is not possible for solving all
waste management problems. Integrated waste management system is considered as the
appropriate strategy for the waste management facilities at this moment. It is important to
integrate different socio-economic, environmental perspectives though multi-stakeholders
activities in the overall IWM strategy. Institutional development is important for driving the
sustainability activity in waste sector. Public participation in overall waste management system is
also one of the important key factors to accelerate sustainable waste management programme in
Sweden.
Scope of Future Study
• This study has only considered Pyrolysis-Gasification process as an emerging technology.
However, other emerging technologies such as Plasma Arc Gasification, Hydrolysis, Solid
KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HÖGSKOLAN
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