Damage-Oriented Approach in Aerobic Windrow Composting and Anaerobic Technologies for Food Waste Management

Aerobic treatment such as windrow composting is preferable for food waste treatment in terms of scalability, handling, and maintenance, as reflected in the lower costs for large-scale operations. However, aerobic performance is affected by the technology used, the kind of waste being treated, and the working condition of the facilities. This study quantifies and compares the damage impacts in terms of resource availability, human health, and ecosystem diversity of aerobic windrow with other anaerobic technologies such as dry AD and wet AD using a life cycle assessment (LCA) damage-oriented approach. The LCA framework is modelled using GaBi v6.0 software, which quantified and evaluated the environmental loads of the entire system using ReCiPe v1.07 characterisation methods. According to damage-impact assessment, Sc3 dry AD is found to be the most preferable treatment method with the least damage impacts (4.44E + 01), followed by Sc4 wet AD integrated aerobic windrow (4.48E + 02), and Sc1 windrow composting (6.61E + 02 Pt). This study assists decision-making for the implementation of appropriate FW management in Malaysia.