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Wood waste decomposition in landfills: An assessment of current knowledge and implications for emissions reporting

Overview of attention for article published in Waste Management, December 2017
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Title
Wood waste decomposition in landfills: An assessment of current knowledge and implications for emissions reporting
Published in
Waste Management, December 2017
DOI 10.1016/j.wasman.2017.12.002
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jean O'Dwyer, Dylan Walshe, Kenneth A. Byrne

Abstract

Large quantities of wood products have historically been disposed of in landfills. The fate of this vast pool of carbon plays an important role in national carbon balances and accurate emission reporting. The Republic of Ireland, like many EU countries, utilises the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for greenhouse gas reporting in the waste sector, which provides default factors for emissions estimation. For wood products, the release of carbon is directly proportional to the decomposition of the degradable organic carbon fraction of the product, for which the IPCC provides a value of 0.5 (50%). However, in situ analytic results of the decomposition rates of carbon in landfilled wood do not corroborate this figure; suggesting that carbon emissions are likely overestimated. To assess the impact of this overestimation on emission reporting, carbon decomposition values obtained from literature and the IPCC default factor were applied to the Irish wood fraction of landfilled waste for the years 1957-2016 and compared. Univariate analysis found a statistically significant difference between carbon (methane) emissions calculated using the IPCC default factor and decomposition factors from direct measurements for softwoods (F = 45.362, p = <.001), hardwoods (F = 20.691, p = <.001) and engineered wood products (U = 4.726, p = <.001). However, there was no significant difference between emissions calculated using only the in situ analytic decomposition factors, regardless of time in landfill, location or subsequently, climate. This suggests that methane emissions from the wood fraction of landfilled waste in Ireland could be drastically overestimated; potentially by a factor of 56. The results of this study highlight the implications of emission reporting at a lower tierand prompts further research into the decomposition of wood products in landfills at a national level.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 80 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 80 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 13 16%
Researcher 10 13%
Student > Master 9 11%
Student > Bachelor 9 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 4 5%
Other 9 11%
Unknown 26 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Environmental Science 21 26%
Engineering 11 14%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 3 4%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 3 4%
Chemical Engineering 3 4%
Other 10 13%
Unknown 29 36%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 September 2023.
All research outputs
#14,789,745
of 25,382,440 outputs
Outputs from Waste Management
#1,553
of 2,441 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#222,561
of 445,007 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Waste Management
#29
of 50 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,382,440 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 41st percentile – i.e., 41% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,441 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.7. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 445,007 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 49th percentile – i.e., 49% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 50 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 42nd percentile – i.e., 42% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.