The collection of source segregated household food waste is becoming increasingly popular, because of its potential to divert biodegradable materials from landfill, increase recycling rates and provide a contaminant-free feedstock for anaerobic digestion. Various types of kerbside household food waste collection systems are operating in the UK and in Europe; however, studies on the energy consumption of integrating source separated food waste with collection of other waste fractions are very limited. A mechanistic model was developed in this research as a waste collection assessment tool (WasteCAT) for scoping and assessment of collection systems. Data collected from six local authorities in England was applied to verify and validate the modelling tool. Fuel consumption and other parameters such as total distance travelled (a proxy for vehicle lifespan), total time spent (a proxy for staffing costs), number of collection vehicles required (a proxy for capital costs), and arrangement of waste types and compartments were also assessed in this research, as these factors may also influence the selection of kerbside waste collection systems. A typical hypothetical town of 25,000 households was chosen to study the performance of separate, co-collection, kerbside-sorted and partially-sorted collection of household waste by different sizes and types of single and compartmentalised collection vehicles at different collection frequencies. Comparing the performance of the four collection systems, kerbside partially-sorted collection required the least fuel, while co-collection of household waste always had the best performance in terms of total travelling distance, time spent and number of collection vehicles required. The difference between the best and the worst systems was up to 156% for fuel use, 131% for distance travelled, 63% for time spent and 141% for vehicles required. Besides that, inappropriate allocation of compartment and waste type could increase fuel use by up to 1.1 times in co-collection, 2.27 times in kerbside-sorted and 3.08 times in kerbside partially-sorted collection. The research shows WasteCAT could provide a powerful tool for exploring alternative options. Keywords: Waste collection, collection vehicles, fuel consumption, food waste.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:655372 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Chu, Tsz Wing |
| Contributors | Heaven, Sonia |
| Publisher | University of Southampton |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/375095/ |
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