LCA Thinking in Hampshire’s Material Resources Strategy

Steve.read@hants.gov.uk

Hampshire Natural Resources

Initiative

More from Less– the Material Resources Strategy for Hampshire - was launched in March 2005, as a non-statutory but overarching philosophy to provide the primary reference point to guide and integrate work in three key areas:

• The production of a joint statutory Minerals and Waste Development Framework (MWDF)

• The development of plans for managing municipal waste

• The implementation of societal change initiatives.

More from Less seeks to answer four key questions:

• What can be done locally to enable society to change practices and behaviour to reduce the consumption of materials?

• How much scope is there to reuse and recycle more materials and feed them back economically into the production system?

• How can we best recover value from, and deal effectively with, materials that cannot be practically reused or recycled?

• How can the need for new materials be best met?

Traditionally we have concentrated on Regulating

extraction…

Extraction

…And waste.

An “end of pipe” problem.

Extraction Disposal or Dispersion

Extraction Disposal or Dispersion

We don’t make the best use of resources already in the

economy

The MRS proposes a whole life cycle approach, increasing the recycling or recovery of materials and reducing the need for more extraction and disposal facilities.

The Material Resources Strategy was developed through a series of workshops held over the period September 2003 to December 2004.

There were six main workshops, each attended by between 100 and 200 people. In total, over 350 people participated in one or more of the events.

A life cycle approach required in-depth knowledge of specific material sectors and business issues.

Experts from industry sectors, WRAP etc met to identify “business as usual” & “stretching best practice” scenarios for 12 material streams.

12 Material Streams Analysed

Glass Bio-waste

Paper & card WEEE

Plastics Textiles

C,D & E ELV

Metals Agricultural

Wood Haz & chemicals

LCAs

• Existing LCAs identified – taking the consensus view.

• Some well covered - glass, paper, metals• Others apparently not so - eg plastics,

organics.

LCAs identified broad principles to use as a start point

• Paper - Material Recycling preferable to Energy Recovery

• Glass – Remelt preferable to aggregate substitution

LCAs in context – expert views

• Paper - Recycling may be preferable for paper, but is there sufficient market capacity? Can it be collected to the quality needed?

• Glass - Remelt may be preferable to substitution for aggregate but keeping colours separate is more resource intensive.

Options appraisal Matrix:

• Environmental Objective– Minimise impact on air, water, soil, climate,

biodiversity– Impact on human health– Minimise transport

Options appraisal matrix

• Resource Management Objective– Waste minimisation– Minimise disposal to landfill– Maximise beneficial use– Meet targets

Options appraisal matrix

• Socio- economic objectives– Public acceptability– Business opportunities– Public education & involvement– Social inclusion

Outputs

• Estimation of how much of each material is out there in Hampshire

• Estimate of current capture rates• Shortfall in collection and processing capacity• Overall targets for each material and total for

Hampshire based on “stretching best practice” scenario.

Lessons learned

• Excellent process for demonstrating the issues and the need for a step change in thinking and performance

• Having just two scenarios oversimplified things • Need more complex analysis.

What’s the best solution

for organics?

EFW? MBT?

Home digestion?

Sewage system?

What’s the best solution

for organics?

Depends on your start point…

Complexities of Displacement

• We could provide an MBT/ AD route for food waste. This would displace material from the current ERF route

• This would free up capacity for more “wet” material at the ERFs.

• We therefore require LCAs for several materials, possibly including those outside the conventional scope of “municipal waste management”.

Complexities of “Optimality”

• Optimal benefits are delivered at the point where economic costs, social utility and environmental benefits are in balance

• Currently we are capturing around 64% of available DMR

• Law of diminishing – or negative - returns will apply if the remaining third is is pursued to the “nth ” degree.

Complexities of previous decisions

• We collect DMR including paper mixed at kerbside and sort at a MRF.

• Quality is sufficient for UK markets but– Yield of News & PAMS could be higher– Industry constantly pushing for higher quality

• One option could be to collect paper separately • Would require complete redesign of collection

systems with attendant costs – and opportunities.

Conclusion

• LCAs are an important part of “life cycle thinking” but they cannot describe the complexity of a whole waste system.

• LCAs are decision support tools not decision making tools

LCA

Life Cyclethinking