WasteLCA 5: New Tools for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Municipal and Challenging Waste Management

Building on the success of the 2016 and 2022 conferences held at Grand Hotel San Michele in Cetraro, Italy, and that of the 2018 and 2024 conferences held in Comwell Borupgaard, Denmark, this fifth iteration of the WasteLCA conference will bring together a wide range of delegates from different scientific areas, thereby taking a multi-disciplinary approach to the assessment of municipal and industrial waste management in the framework of a future, as much circular as possible, economy. The conference focuses on methodologies and Life Cycle Management (LCM) tools – Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) – which allow a fair and reliable comparison between the performances of different waste and residual resource management solutions. Methodological developments related to these approaches will be considered together with case studies implying general conclusions. Most current waste and resource management schemes still lack a holistic approach that is able to cover all the sustainability aspects of the whole chain from product design, raw material extraction, production and consumption of goods and services, re-manufacturing and re-use, resource recovery from waste down to its safe final disposal. Moreover, most solutions could be integrated with other sectors in society, mainly those of energy, carbon capture, transport, materials, and chemicals production. In this framework, the management of municipal and challenging streams (sanitary, radioactive, and mineral waste) requires efficient tools, able to provide reliable (accurate and quantitative) life cycle sustainability assessment methods. Digital technologies (blockchain, IoT, bigdata and AI) could strongly support LCM tools. WasteLCA-5 addresses the latest developments in the area, focusing on the new tools that can be integrated with a conventional LCM approach, providing a fast and accurate estimation of the overall performances of waste and residual resource management solutions. The program includes keynote speakers, thematic sessions, workshops, and poster sessions. The intention is to stimulate fruitful discussions on innovative ideas and directions to be pursued in future research activities, as well as how these approaches can be transferred to practical application in society. Tentative List of Topics - LCA and other LCM tools for quantitative assessment of municipal and industrial waste management scenarios - LCA and other LCM tools for the management of specific challenging waste streams (e.g., sanitary waste; radioactive waste; mineral waste) in a Circular Economy perspective - LCA and other LCM tools for specific waste technologies and their integration into connected systems (e.g., transport; biorefineries; carbon capture and storage) - Digital technologies for LCA: integrating blockchain, IoT, bigdata and AI into LCAs - Prospective LCA and other LCM tools for emerging technologies for waste management and resource optimization - Life Cycle Engineering and Sustainable Manufacturing - Integration of Planetary Boundaries in LCA for waste management options: approaches and case studies - Effects of legislation and policy on future waste management criteria in a life cycle perspective. - Open-source tools and scripts for improved LCA and LCM for waste management