State-of-the-Art Solid Waste Management Life-Cycle Modeling Workshop

There are many alternatives for the management of solid waste including recycling, biological treatment, thermal treatment and landfill disposal. In many cases, solid waste management systems include the use of several of these processes. Solid waste life-cycle assessment models are often used to evaluate the environmental consequences of various waste management strategies. The foundation of every life-cycle model is the development and use of process models to estimate the emissions from solid waste unit processes. The objective of this workshop is to describe life-cycle modeling of the solid waste processes and systems. The workshop will begin with an introduction to solid waste life-cycle modeling and available models, which will be followed by sessions on life-cycle process modeling for individual processes (e.g., landfills, biological treatment, and thermal treatment). The first part of each session will be used to explain the state-of-the-art for a given solid waste process model and the remainder of the time will be devoted to input and discussion.