Sustainability Metrics for Waste Management

This paper explores techniques in sustainability metrics modeling and metrics-driven scenarios analysis to evaluate and improve process performance in sustainable waste management. The sustainability is measured along the triple bottom line. Model-based metrics for quantifying environmental impacts, societal implications, and economic profitability of material recovery processes are developed as functions of processing technology choices, key operating parameters, and material market conditions. Process scenarios are analyzed based on the metric models developed to provide a series of reference points for process performance improvement. The results have provided recyclers with a solid understanding of the factors affecting sustainability in waste management, and facilitated them to make and justify sustainability decisions in sustainable recovery of materials from industrial wastes.