Climate and
Materials Management
SERDC November 3, 2009
Jennifer Brady
USEPA
Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery
How are Waste and Climate
Connected??• What is the Life Cycle of a material?
• The simplified version:
– Raw material extraction (bauxite mining, tree
harvesting, oil pumped from underground, etc.)
– Raw materials are processed into manufacturing
inputs (trees made into paper, etc.)
– Products are made from manufacturing inputs
– Products are used
– End-of-life products (and other discards) are
managed as recyclables or waste
The Life Cycle
Greenhouse Gases
• There are many Greenhouse Gases (GHG) associated with the product life cycle (CO2, CH4, N2O, etc.),
• Each GHG has a different impact on global warming
• We normalize the data using Global Warming Potentials (GWP)– a relative scale which compares the impact of the GHG to the
impact of the same mass of CO2 (GWP of CO2 =1)
– for example, GWP for CH4 = 21 and for N2O = 310
– emissions of 1 million metric tons of CH4 and N2O are equivalent to emissions of 21 and 310 million metric tons of CO2 , respectively
• Normalized GHG data are expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2 e
Upstream and Downstream
Emissions
• You are standing in a stream of materials,
holding a product that you just purchased
•“Upstream” of you is the part of the lifecycle
where raw materials are extracted and
processed, and goods are manufactured
•“Downstream” of you is where products are
sent for reuse, materials are recycled, energy
is recovered, or discards are landfilled.
Upstream Links
• GHG emissions associated with energy production are avoided through source reduction & recycling
– Replacement of discarded materials requires energy to extract, transport, and process raw virgin materials.
– Manufacturing products from recycled materials typically requires less energy than manufacturing from virgin materials.
Upstream Links continued
• Process energy GHGs comprise the majority of upstream emissions for the manufacture of both virgin and recycled materials – on average, approximately 80 percent*
• The transportation energy associated with manufacturing accounts for a small share of upstream emissions – on average less than 20%*
*for materials considered in EPA’s Waste Reduction Model
GHG emissions avoided by recycling
rather than landfilling 100 tons of:
Aluminum Cans 1,371 MTOC2e
Steel Cans 184 MTOC2e
Glass 32 MTOC2e
HDPE 144 MTOC2e
PET 159 MTOC2e
Corrugated Boxes 344 MTOC2e
Newspaper 191 MTOC2e
What’s the impact of recycling on GHG
emissions?
• In 2007, the U.S. recycled 33 % (85
million tons) of MSW1
• Avoided emissions of 193 million MTCO2e
• Equivalent to the annual GHG emissions of 35
million passenger vehicles (about 14 percent of
passenger vehicles registered in the U.S.)
Source:
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/nonhw/muncpl/msw99.htm
Systems Based View of US GHG Emissions
Source: USEPA, Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Materials and Land
Management Practices, September 2009.
Legislation
• Kerry - Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act
– Does include some provisions for recycling
– Money for State recycling programs
• Not part of cap and trade
• Waxman-Markey
– No recycling included
How do we measure the Waste
and Climate Connection??
The Waste Reduction Model (WARM)
www.epa.gov/WARM
• WARM was designed to provide waste managers with a simple tool to help them understand and evaluate the greenhouse gas implications of their waste management decisions
Emission factors developed for:
• Source reduction
• Recycling
• Composting
• Combustion
• Landfilling
– 26 material types and 6 categories of mixed
materials (paper, metals, plastics, organics,
MSW, and recyclables)
Materials in WARM
Aluminum Cans Magazines/Third-class Mail Food Scraps
Steel Cans Medium Density Fiberboard Yard Trimmings
Copper Wire Corrugated Cardboard Grass
Glass Dimensional Lumber Leaves
HDPE Mixed Paper (3 categories) Branches
LDPE Mixed Metals Carpet
PET Mixed Plastics PCs
Newspaper Mixed Organics Clay Bricks
Office Paper Mixed Recyclables Concrete
Phonebooks Mixed MSW Fly Ash
Textbooks Tires
Modelling the Waste-Climate
Connection
Output
Equivalencies
Equivalencies Output
• Annual GHG emissions from passenger vehicles
• CO2 Emissions from gasoline consumed
• CO2 from the electricity used of homes
Contact Information
Jennifer Brady
USEPA
Office of Resource Conservation
and Recovery
Phone: 703-347-8964
Email: [email protected]
EPA’s Waste Reduction Model http://www.epa.gov/warm