Waste management policies and diversion targets impacts in the landfill gas-to-energy recovery systems

Despite electricity generated from landfill gas (LFG) is widely studied, the effect over time of dynamic changes in the waste composition caused by diversions of MSW was still scarce. In this sense, this paper evaluates the impact of policy targets for diversion of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) on energy production from LFG recovery. A System Dynamics (SD) model is proposed based on the LandGEM model to quantify the LFG generation. The results show that dry recyclable materials diversion is a favourable measure that increases LFG generation, while organic waste diversion measures have the opposite effect, which directly affects energy generation. Diverting 5 to 20% of organic waste still would allow 10% higher electricity generation coming from LFG recovery than most landfills in Brazil. The cost benefit analysis indicated the feasibility of landfill gas-to-energy projects under the different diversion targets and their contribution to mitigating equivalent CO2 emissions. In addition to an academic contribution to waste management studies by using SD, this paper aids decision making for landfill energy generation projects concerning the impact from policies aiming to divert dry recyclable and organic waste from landfilling to recycling.