Investigation of integrated municipal solid waste management strategies for Oman: an assessment of waste diversion, electricity generation and greenhouse-gas emissions

The need of an integrated municipal solid waste (MSW) management system to maximize resource recovery and simultaneously reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions is rising in Oman. Therefore, three waste management scenarios are proposed and assessed in this study based on their potential to reduce waste and GHG emissions, and recover energy and recyclables in Oman from 2020 to 2040. The first scenario included recycling, anaerobic digestion (AD), and landfill disposal; while second scenario entailed recycling, incineration, and ash disposal. The third scenario involved incineration and AD plants, and landfilling of residues. The analysis indicated that the disposal of waste in scenario 2 will be the lowest during the entire study period (30–24%), followed by scenario 3 (32–41%) and scenario 1 (94–58%). Moreover, during the assessment period, scenario 3 will generate a total of 47 TWh electricity, higher than scenario 2 (29 TWh) and scenario 1 (4.7 TWh). Disposal of MSW is estimated to produce 309,803 GgCO2e from 2020 to 2040; however, these emissions can be reduced by 53, 94 and 90% by the implementation of scenarios 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Furthermore, the average global warming factors after energy and material recovery further indicate that scenario 2 and scenario 3 result in net GHG emission savings of − 0.4 and – 0.28 GgCO2e/Gg of MSW, except for scenario 1 which will produce 2.37 GgCO2e/Gg of MSW. The analysis showed that in terms of reducing waste disposal and GHG emissions, scenario 2 is the best performing option; however, scenario 3 has the highest energy output.