Life-Cycle Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Management Systems: A Case Study of the City of Dubrovnik

Due to changes in economic development, tourism, and higher consumption, the daily per capita municipal solid waste generation in the city of Dubrovnik is expected to rise. Dubrovnik's waste largely ends up in landfill, with only a small fraction collected and recovered independently. To minimise negative effects on the environment and society as a whole, it is vital to assess the en-vironmental implications of waste management processes, goods, and services throughout their entire cycles. Using the life-cycle assessment IWM-EPIC/CSR software, this study examined the environmental impacts of Dubrovnik's municipal solid waste management system. Based on data on Dubrovnik's waste for 2019, the existing municipal waste management system of Dubrovnik (V1) was reviewed, and three enhanced variations of the municipal solid waste management sys-tem (V2, V3, and V4) were taken into consideration. In variants V2, V3, and V4, it was assumed that less municipal waste would be disposed of in favour of type-specific waste collection, pro-cessing, and utilisation (such as recycling or energy recovery), as well as the accomplishment of the quantitative and qualitative targets established by the Waste Management Act. After examining and contrasting the effects of various waste management system variations on the environment, it was possible to draw the conclusion that, by implementing variant V4, in which more than 34 % of waste would be recycled, 54 % of biodegradable waste would be composted, more than 3 % of energy would be recovered through cogeneration of heat and electricity, and 8 % of waste would be disposed of at the landfill, all significant negative effects on human health would be mitigated, as would environmental degradation and the extraction of irreversible natural resources.