Material flow analysis

Material flow analysis (MFA), also referred to as substance flow analysis (SFA), is an analytical method to quantify flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-defined system. MFA is an important tool to study the bio-physical aspects of human activity on different spatial and temporal scales. It is considered a core method of industrial ecology or anthropogenic, urban, social and industrial metabolism. MFA is used to study material, substance, or product flows across different industrial sectors or within ecosystems. MFA can also be applied to a single industrial installation, for example, for tracking nutrient flows through a waste water treatment plant. When combined with an assessment of the costs associated with material flows this business-oriented application of MFA is called material flow cost accounting. MFA is an important tool to study the circular economy and to devise material flow management. Since the 1990s, the number of publications related to material flow

Waste Reduction Strategies: A Different Perspective on Waste Flow Modeling and its Application to Concrete and Phosphorus

Anna Minata Cissé

Changing consumption patterns and global population growth lead to ever-increasing waste generation. Human activity and waste generation are irrevocably linked, and the current situation thus calls for a more circular approach to waste management, where wastes become new resources. Industrial ecology offers a variety of waste reduction-favoring concepts. As a first step this project identifies waste-preventing, waste-reducing, end of pipe (EOP) waste management approaches and legislation as classification categories for waste management strategies. Although, according to the waste hierarchy, waste prevention is the most preferable waste management approach, it is the least implemented. To facilitate the identification of waste prevention and reduction potentials, a special waste flow diagram from the waste management perspective is elaborated. The model tends to visualize all waste flows, including by-product valorization along a product's life cycle through the choice of a thematic-geographic system boundary. In a further step the applicability of the waste flow model is tested for concrete-related wastes and phosphorus (P) flows in wastes. The quantification of concrete waste flows for the city of Zurich shows that recycling is well implemented, whereas preferable waste management strategies, prevention and reduction of waste, are hardly put into practice. Scenario modeling is used to show the benefits of these techniques and the comparative LCA for different construction methods and materials identifies waste prevention as most beneficial option. For P, the waste flow model is applied to test its ability to detect P recovery potentials, however no new findings in terms of P-recovery potential are identified. The most compelling result regarding phosphorus is found in the extension to the initial investigation, the mass flow analysis for a wet-chemical and a thermochemical P-recovery procedure from sewage sludge ashes. The analysis shows that for EOP waste technologies, the material output can be bigger than the input due to the extended use of additives. Although all generated by-products can, in this case, be valorized by other industrial activities, this finding highlights the need for more waste prevention-oriented waste management strategies, thus avoiding the necessity to generate high by-product flows in the first place.

2018

Waste Reduction Strategies: A Different Perspective on Waste Flow Modeling and its Application to Concrete and Phosphorus

Anna Minata Cissé

2018

Municipal Waste and Recycled Material Flow Analysis of Ho Chi Minh City – Focus on Private Collection and Recycling Activities

E-Waste Generation in Chile – Situation Analysis an Estimation of Actual and Future Computer Waste Quantities Using Material Flow Analysis

Waste Reduction Strategies: A Different Perspective on Waste Flow Modeling and its Application to Concrete and Phosphorus

E-Waste Generation in Chile – Situation Analysis an Estimation of Actual and Future Computer Waste Quantities Using Material Flow Analysis

Municipal Waste and Recycled Material Flow Analysis of Ho Chi Minh City – Focus on Private Collection and Recycling Activities

Waste Reduction Strategies: A Different Perspective on Waste Flow Modeling and its Application to Concrete and Phosphorus