Avoided GHG Emissions from Organic Waste through Composting: A Case Study

Waste management systems are a non-negligible source of greenhouse gases (GHG). In particular, methane emissions from organic waste due to the breakdown of biodegradable carbon compounds operated on by anaerobic bacteria. A case study of composting project in Shijiazhuang city, Hebei province of China is discussed in this paper. The project applies composting technology to treat organic waste and will reduce methane emissions by diverting organic wastes from dumping at a landfill to a composting plant. The baseline scenario is that organic matter is broken down through uncontrolled anaerobic processes in landfill, releasing all produced methane into the atmosphere. The analyses are conducted based on using the US EPA first order decay model and methodology AM0025 of Clean Development Mechanism for the projections of GHG emission reductions for the project's baseline. It is found that the composting project will reduce GHG emissions of about 309,933 tones of CO₂e over the first 7-year crediting period, and CDM will make the composting project economically profitable.