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The Environmental Impact of Paper Waste Recycling: A Comparative Study MacEachern, Neil

Abstract

This paper aims to quantify the environmental impact of recycling paper in Canada versus other paper waste management options using the indicators of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Analysis was carried out comparing recycling to landfill, landfill with methane capture, energy-from-waste, cogeneration, and the use of conserved timber for energy. A review was done of existing paper life cycle analyses, as well as original calculations using data from refereed and Canadian government sources. It was found that recycling, based on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, does reduce environmental impact, but that this benefit can be increased by recycling fibre multiple times, and through the integration of more than one management method.

Item Metadata

Title
The Environmental Impact of Paper Waste Recycling: A Comparative Study
Creator
MacEachern, Neil
Date Issued
2009-05-01
Description
This paper aims to quantify the environmental impact of recycling paper in Canada versus other paper waste management options using the indicators of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Analysis was carried out comparing recycling to landfill, landfill with methane capture, energy-from-waste, cogeneration, and the use of conserved timber for energy. A review was done of existing paper life cycle analyses, as well as original calculations using data from refereed and Canadian government sources. It was found that recycling, based on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, does reduce environmental impact, but that this benefit can be increased by recycling fibre multiple times, and through the integration of more than one management method.
Subject
Paper waste management; Paper recycling; Energy-from-waste; Cogeneration; Landfill methane
Genre
Graduating Project
Type
Text
Language
eng
Series
University of British Columbia. FRST 497
Date Available
2016-02-02
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0075499
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30044
Affiliation
Forestry, Faculty of
Campus
UBCV
Peer Review Status
Unreviewed
Scholarly Level
Undergraduate
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository
DSpace

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International