The combined material flow analysis and life cycle assessment for integrated end-of-life of mercury contaminated petroleum waste management

Abstract

Now a day, the waste management generated by offshore petroleum operation (including drilling and production) located in the Gulf of Thailand seem to be a great challenge. Because of their unique characteristic in terms of hazardous properties, petroleum waste requires particular treatments to reduce potential impacts to the environment and human life. This study, the petroleum waste by their disposal code, and waste code was sorted. The Hg-contaminated petroleum waste flow starting from waste generation towards to final disposal was conducted by Material Flow Analysis (STAN, 2.6.601) and Life Cycle Assessment (SimaPro 8.3.0.0) was conducted as tools for evaluating the environmental impacts. The treatment of Hg-contaminated waste was studied by SimaPro LCA software (SimaPro 8.3.0.0) using ReCiPe mid-point (H) method. The human toxicity (kg 1,4-DB eq) and climate change (kg CO₂ eq) impacts were selected because of human toxic damage and global warming concerns. The functional unit was one kg of Hg-contaminated waste. The treatment option was divided into four methods including storage, fuel blending, recovery unlisted material, and landfill. The combined result showed that Hg-contaminated waste disposed of Hg recovery indicated the benefit contributed to human toxicity (-1,344,704 t 1,4-DB eq) but high negative impact on climate change (34,785 t CO₂ eq). The landfill option indicated the high human toxicity impact (5.647 t 1,4-DB eq).