Abstract
Acase study of food waste treatment was conducted to compare the impacts of four scenarios: incineration, incineration after biogasification, biogasification followed by composting, and composting. Potential contributions to climate change, acidification, consumption of landfill and humantoxicity were assessed. Characterization of human toxicity caused by heavy metals and dioxins wasperformed by three multimedia fate models. Scenarios incorporating the biogasification processshowed lower impact on climate change and human toxicity. Compared to incineration, compostingcauses larger emission of green house gases (GHGs), but its lower consumption of landfill more thancompensates for the GHGs emission. The ranking of the four scenarios on human toxicity varieddepending on the characterization models applied. The steady state models placed high priority onemission of heavy metals in farmland, whereas the dynamic model (time horizon 100 years) estimatedthe emission of dioxins from the incineration process as more significant.
