A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Environmental Engineering and Management

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2015

Concerns about global, regional and local emission of pollutants are at the alarm level especially in term of MSW. Increasing standard of living along with rapid urbanization and the limited capacity of the existing MSWMS make Afghanistan's major cities, for example, Kandahar City to tackle with the problem of MSW management and hence it is needed to make attempts to shift from primitive MSWMSs toward IWMSs. The objectives of this study are to find out the composition of MSW at disposal site, to do LCA of current MSWMS and comparison of two developed scenarios (IWMSs) with the base scenario. A six-week field survey in December, 2014 and January, 2015 revealed that physical composition of food waste, textile, paper and cardboard, wood, plastic, glass, metal, hazardous material, miscellaneous (not separable) and inert (soil, sand, brick, etc.) were 26.89%, 1.75%, 1.85%, 1.07%, 12.42%, 3.12%, 0.37%, 0.15%, 12.69% and 39.72%, respectively, at the MSW disposal site of Kandahar City. The result shows that inert fraction is high because of constructional activities, and street and canal cleaning. LCA of current MSWMS was carried out with inclusion of fuel energy production, transport, burning used engine oil obtained from vehicles maintenance, and MSW degradation in its system boundary. The functional unit was set to 1 ton of mixed collected MSW. The result showed that environmental impact potential for global warming, ozone depletion, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, human toxicity, photo oxidant formation and particulate matter formation were 1504.6kg CO₂ equivalent, 13g CFC-11 equivalent, 1.11kg SO₂ equivalent, 645mg P equivalent, 28.77kg 1,4-DB equivalent, 0.46kg C2H4 equivalent plus 2.11kg NMVOC, and 0.55kg PM10 equivalent, respectively, per functional unit. MSW degradation and transport were the processes mostly contributing to potential environmental impact. Two scenarios (IWMSs) were developed. In scenario 1, there was recycling of 50% recyclable materials at the disposal site which avoided energy and raw materials consumption for new production. It could reduce GWP 10.6% (159.3 kg CO₂ equivalent) compared to base scenario. In scenario 2, in spite of recycling of 50% recyclable materials, anaerobic digestion of 50% food waste was included to recover energy and compost. Scenario 2 showed reduction of 32.6% GWP (490 kg CO₂ equivalent) compared to base scenario. Hence, scenario 2 was a better IWMS in term of environmental sustainability to be considered by decision makers in Kandahar City.