Greenhouse Gas Emissions Assessment in Waste Management: A Case Study of Polesgo Landfill, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from waste management are proving to be a major concern in terms of climate change. In terms of methane emissions at national level, studies have shown that the waste sector is second after agriculture, with 12% of emissions. The aim of this study is to quantify the GHG emissions from various waste management units at the Polesgo landfill in Ouagadougou. These four (04) units are waste transport from the waste sorting centers to the Polesgo landfill unit, landfill unit, composting unit, and plastic recycling unit. To account for GHGs at the level of each unit, the model proposed by the IPCC's 2019 guidelines was used. To do this, in addition to the emission factor developed in our study, other emission factors co-determined in a parallel study were used. The results show that of the four waste management units, the landfill unit emitted the highest quantity during the year. This is followed by transport unit, composting and recycling units, with respectively 363,928.56 tCO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf>-eq; 2,629.71 tCO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> -eq; 14.13 t CO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> -eq; 4.044 tCO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> -eq. For efficient overall accounting at national level in the waste sector, we recommend applying the same methodology.