Emergy Evaluation of the Current Solid Waste Management System in a Sicilian District and Comparison with Future Scenarios

The present study reports an evaluation of the ecosystem support required for both the current solid waste management system in the district of Catania, in Sicily, and the future system, planned by the Regional Government, that is still in process of approval. The new system introduces many improvements through the integration of the European Directive on waste management that includes the practice of waste collection and recycling up to 35% and the final destination of the unsorted fraction to an incinerator. Currently, in Sicily, up to 90% of municipal solid wastes are dumped in landfills. The former Regional Governor proposed to build four big incinerators for the whole island in order to get rid of the wastes, no matter how much is collected and recycled, due to the state of alert that Sicily is experiencing in terms of waste management. On this regard, there is a big debate among the authorities and the population due to the risk of pollution created by the incinerators. In this study the emergy synthesis was used as a tool for the evaluation of the ecosystem support involved for the different scenarios. Results from a previous study using the ecological footprint are also reported and compared with the emergy indices. An integrated evaluation of different indicators as tools to understand the sustainability of human driven activities can be considered as a good practice to help decision makers.