International Industrial Ecology Day 2021

Estimating Physical Composition of Municipal Solid Waste in China by Applying Artificial Neural Network Method

Abstract

Physical composition of municipal solid waste (PCMSW) is the fundamental parameter in domestic waste management; however, high fidelity, wide coverage, upscaling, and year continuous data sets of PCMSW in China are insufficient. A traceable and predictable methodology for estimating PCMSW in China is established for the first time by analyzing 503 PCMSW data sets of 135 prefecture-level cities in China. A hyperspherical transformation method was used to eliminate the constant sum constraint in statistically analyzing PCMSW data. Moreover, a back-propagation (BP) neural network methodology was applied to establish quantitative models between city-level PCMSW and its socio-economic factors, including city size, per capita gross regional product, geographical location, gas coverage rate, and year. Results show that (1) national-level PCMSW in 2017 was estimated as organic fraction (53.7%), ash and stone (8.3%), paper (16.9%), plastic and rubber (13.6%), textile (2.3%), wood (2.2%), metal (0.6%), glass (1.5%), and others (1.0%); (2) organic fraction, paper, and plastics showed an increasing trend from 1990 to 2017, while ash and stone decreased significantly; (3) organic fractions in East, North, and Central-South China were higher than those in other regions. This enables us to fill data gap in the practice of municipal solid waste management in China.

Author(s)

Name Affiliation
Shijun Ma Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhou Chuanbin Supervisor

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