Assessment of Integrated Waste Management Systems in Kandahar City, Afghanistan

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of current MSWMS for Kandahar City and two developed integrated waste management systems (IWMSs) were carried out. In addition, field survey was performed to find out the composition of MSW in Kandahar City as this was the base line data for the LCA’s. Field survey at the MSW disposal site of Kandahar City revealed that physical composition of food waste was low (26.89%) and inert (soil, sand, brick, etc.) was high (39.72%) 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 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 1504.6 kg CO2 equivalent, 13 g CFC-11 equivalent, 1.11 kg SO2 equivalent, 645 mg P equivalent, 28.77 kg 1,4-DB equivalent, 0.46 kg C2H4 equivalent plus 2.11 kg NMVOC, and 0.55 kg PM10 equivalent, respectively, per functional unit (FU). MSW degradation and transport were the processes mostly contributing to potential environmental impact. In scenario 1, recycling (RC) avoided energy and raw materials consumption for new production. It could reduce 10.6% (159.3 kg CO2 equivalent) global warming potential (GWP) compared to base scenario. In scenario 2, in spite of recycling, anaerobic digestion was included to recover energy and compost. Scenario 2 showed reduction of 32.6% (490 kg CO2 equivalent) GWP 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.