Plastic Waste Handling and its Influence on Household Waste Incineration : A forward looking study for theCounty of Stockholm

Abstract: This study, aiming to support the future decision-making, presents a model that tries to evaluate the effects of different combinations of likely future changes in the mixed waste generation and of conservative or innovative organisations of the plastic waste handling in the County of Stockholm in the year 2030. The criteria chosen for the evaluation are the energy generated (heat to be used in the district heating network and electricity) from the incineration of plastic waste (which represents nowadays the predominant treatment option for the plastic waste generated in the County of Stockholm) and the amount of virgin raw materials (fossil fuels) needed for the replacement of the plastics not successfully recycled. The results show the importance of the harmonization among the plastic waste composition, the waste collection system and the recycling processes in order to reach a more sustainable configuration of the system. However the uncertainty of some input data hinders a neat evaluation relatively to the selected scenarios.