Sustainability of the pneumatic waste collection system in a dense urban area

The environmental loads and costs of a hypothetical pneumatic waste collection system modelled for a dense urban area in Helsinki, Finland, are calculated and the results are compared to those of the prevailing container based, vehicle operated waste collection system. Methods for evaluation are life cycle inventory (LCI) and social life cycle costing (SLCC). The results indicate that replacing the prevailing system with stationary pneumatic waste collection in existing urban infrastructure generates more air emissions and increases costs of waste collection significantly. Locally, in the waste collection area, emissions nonetheless diminish, since collection traffic reduces. In the environmental analysis electricity consumption and the origin of energy have a significant effect on the results, but decisive are the emissions from manufacturing the system components. In the economic analysis, investments likewise determine the results. Speculations on population density and land use, however, are of importance, when economic viability is discusse