Waste management is a part of every person’s everyday life, as each of us produces waste and thus contributes to the environmental impact of waste management. The doctoral dissertation “Long-term evolution of greenhouse gas emissions from municipal solid waste management” of Mari Hupponen was completed late 2023 in the field of Sustainability Science at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of technology LUT in Finland. Professor Mika Horttanainen and Associate Professor Jouni Havukainen from LUT University were the supervisors of the thesis. Associate Professor Lidia Lombardi (Niccolò Cusano University of Rome, Italy) and Senior Researcher Konstantinos Moustakas (National Technical University of Athens, Greece) were acting as opponents in the public defense on 17th November 2023.
The aim of the doctoral dissertation was to provide information to decision-makers on the development of municipal solid waste (MSW) management over the long-term based on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This information can be used to build sustainable waste management and move towards a circular economy. The secondary aim of the dissertation was to focus on procurement decisions of waste management which are mainly done based on costs, even if the decision has an impact on emissions for several years.
The dissertation focuses on several commercial and household waste fractions, such as mixed residual waste (MRW), biowaste, cardboard, plastics, metals and glass. In particular, GHG emissions of household waste management was studied in the past (in 2009), in recent times (in 2019) and in anticipation of the future (in 2029) in the city of Lappeenranta in Finland. This provides an excellent point of view for looking at the development of circularity. This type of long-term life cycle assessment (LCA) of waste management is less common around the world.
Link to the doctoral dissertation: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-412-001-2
