The aim of this project was to define a clear and comprehensive
indicator to evaluate the environmental and economic
sustainability of an integrated MSW management system already
implemented. A composite indicator has been suggested, which
includes two indicators (i.e. the Material Recovery Indicator – MRI
and the Energy Recovery Indicator – ERI) for the assessment of
environmental performance, and a third one (i.e. the Costs Indicator
– CI) for the assessment of the economic performance. In a
future work, a further indicator that takes into account the social
aspects might be added, so to include all of the three pillars of
sustainability.
Two formulations were proposed for the indicators of material
and energy recovery: one with an immediate physicalmeaning, and
the other one that includes the market value of the products. Further
research is needed to define the economic multipliers, taking
into consideration that they may vary in time and space. Moreover,
the economic multipliers for the energy contributions have to be
carefully estimated, in order for example to decide whether they
shall include only the market values or also the incentives.
The composite indicator allows to compare different integrated
MSW management systems in an objective way and to monitor the
performance of a system over time. It does not pretend to replace
a study of LCA and LCC, but it can be used as a screening tool in a
first stage of assessment and when time and economic resources
are limited. It can be calculated also by local administrators and
managers of the waste system and not only by researcher or LCT
experts.