Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Management and Economics, Karlovo namesti 13, CZ-11235 Prague 2, Czech Republic.
Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Management and Economics, Karlovo namesti 13, CZ-11235 Prague 2, Czech Republic.
Waste Manag. 2021 May 1;126:97-105. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2021.02.053. Epub 2021 Mar 17.
The use of trams for the transport of waste from urban areas to waste incineration facilities - does it make sense, would it be technically feasible, economically sustainable and environmentally beneficial? These are the questions which we attempted to answer in this comprehensive study. The analysis is performed for a specific potential implementation of this system in Prague and adjacent municipalities. In this work, we compare the current state, where mixed municipal waste is transported to an incineration plant directly by garbage trucks, with variants if mixed municipal waste were taken to transfer stations and from there transported over a longer distance in a large volume by means of tram or truck. Our results show that use of trams results in an overall cost level of €16.41 per ton of waste transported, which represents a slight saving against the existing system at a cost of €17.19 per ton. From the purely economic perspective, however, this does not compete with transportation by truck at €12.28 per ton - above all due to high initial investment into new cargo trams. From the environmental viewpoint, deploying trams brings benefits largely on the local level, where emissions would be reduced by about 50% against the current state. In the global view, assessed through the Life Cycle Assessment method, it appears however only to transfer emissions to the point of energy production, and from this perspective the use of trams is beneficial only if linked with a notable shift from fossil fuel energy to nuclear or renewable sources.
使用有轨电车将城市地区的废物运输到垃圾焚烧设施——这是否有意义，在技术上是否可行，在经济上是否可持续，在环境上是否有益？这些是我们在这项综合研究中试图回答的问题。该分析针对该系统在布拉格及周边地区的具体潜在实施情况进行。在这项工作中，我们将当前的情况（混合城市废物由垃圾车直接运往焚烧厂）与混合城市废物被运送到转运站的情况进行了比较，如果从那里通过有轨电车或卡车长途运输大量废物。我们的研究结果表明，使用有轨电车运输的总成本为每吨废物 16.41 欧元，比每吨 17.19 欧元的现行系统略有节省。然而，从纯粹的经济角度来看，与每吨 12.28 欧元的卡车运输相比，这并没有竞争力——主要是由于新货运有轨电车的初始投资很高。从环境角度来看，部署有轨电车主要在地方层面带来好处，与目前相比，排放量将减少约 50%。然而，通过生命周期评估方法进行全球评估，它似乎只是将排放转移到能源生产点，从这个角度来看，只有在显著从化石燃料能源转向核能或可再生能源的情况下，使用有轨电车才是有益的。
