Decarbonisation advances and challenges in the waste industry and soil remediation

Reduction of methane and nitrous oxide emissions is critical in order to mitigate climate change. The current article analyses the decarbonisation practices in the municipal solid waste (MSW) and liquid waste industries in the USA, the European Union (EU), and China, which have pursued different strategies toward this goal. EU’s policies have accelerated decarbonisation through aggressive recycling, and by diminishing landfilling and promoting waste-to-energy. In the USA, decarbonisation of the MSW industry has concentrated onto landfill gas energy projects to capture landfill methane and use it as an energy source. Chinese efforts have concentrated on the reduction of open dumps, with recycling and composting appearing to be in their infancy. Decarbonisation of the wastewater treatment industry is lagging behind in all these countries and nitrous oxide emissions have either been flat or even slightly increasing over the last 20 years. Finally, in terms of soil and groundwater remediation, several agencies in the USA, and some European countries have recently started to pay attention to the reduction of the carbon footprint (CFP) by these activities. Pump-and-treat and thermal treatment techniques of soil vapour extraction and thermal desorption can improve their CFP by exploring renewable energy sources during their operations.