Environmental impact studies are generally focused on the functional unit of the system investigated, neglecting that a given fraction of the goods, services, energy and fuel produced by modern economies are used by workers for carrying out their work within the same system. Hence, the aim of the present study was to assess the contribution of the emissions due to human labor compared to those generated by the waste collection activity. Hence, all the direct and indirect energy and materials consumed by both workers and collection equipment (e.g. bins, bags, collection vehicles, fuel consumption) used for this purpose were analyzed within a life cycle perspective. The main results indicated more than 10% of total emissions were due to HL. In particular the impacts most affected were ozone depletion (kgCFC11,eq) and human toxicity (CTUh) with a share of about 70% and 30%, respectively. Concerning freshwater eco-toxicity, values of about 200 CTUe/tonne and about 80 CTUe/tonne were for human labor and collection equipment, respectively. These results were also qualitatively confirmed by an uncertainty analysis, indicating that human labor represents an important and not negligible contribution to the impact associated to the sector considered.
Contribution of human labor to emissions from waste collection
Di Maria F.
Methodology
;Sisani F.Software
;
2019
Abstract
Environmental impact studies are generally focused on the functional unit of the system investigated, neglecting that a given fraction of the goods, services, energy and fuel produced by modern economies are used by workers for carrying out their work within the same system. Hence, the aim of the present study was to assess the contribution of the emissions due to human labor compared to those generated by the waste collection activity. Hence, all the direct and indirect energy and materials consumed by both workers and collection equipment (e.g. bins, bags, collection vehicles, fuel consumption) used for this purpose were analyzed within a life cycle perspective. The main results indicated more than 10% of total emissions were due to HL. In particular the impacts most affected were ozone depletion (kgCFC11,eq) and human toxicity (CTUh) with a share of about 70% and 30%, respectively. Concerning freshwater eco-toxicity, values of about 200 CTUe/tonne and about 80 CTUe/tonne were for human labor and collection equipment, respectively. These results were also qualitatively confirmed by an uncertainty analysis, indicating that human labor represents an important and not negligible contribution to the impact associated to the sector considered.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
