Evaluation of the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from waste management practices at the Central Plaza Rattanathibet shopping center: A case study

Abstract

Waste management in shopping center represents a human activity that has the potential to emit greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change. This issue is an urgent and challenging problem that every global organization is paying attention to. This research presents an integrated approach that combines three critical aspects of sustainable waste management in the shopping center: waste composition analysis, greenhouse gas emissions calculation, and an examination of customer and staff attitudes towards waste separation in shopping center. The study conducted a comparison between two waste management scenarios. Scenario 1 represents the current waste management approach in the shopping center, primarily relying on landfilling, while Scenario 2 presents an integrated waste management strategy that includes four waste disposal methods: landfilling, composting, refuse-derived fuel (RDF 5), and recycling.The results indicated that in the year 2022, the shopping center produced a total of 1,967.47 tonnes of waste annually. The investigation revealed the predominant waste compositions in the shopping center, with food waste (39.28%), followed by other waste (24.63%), plastic waste (15.52%), paper and board (10.48%), and glass (5.45%). To assess greenhouse gas emissions, the study adhered to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas National Inventories. Scenario 1, characterized by landfill-only waste management, resulted in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 124.94 tonnes of CO2eq/year. In contrast, scenario 2, which embraced integrated waste management, demonstrated significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to - 839.37 tonnes of CO2eq/year. The presence of this negative value signifies that the waste management methods in scenario 2 led to a net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions when compared to scenario 1. This reduction was accomplished through the adoption of waste management strategies like RDF 5, composting, and recycling, all of which directly contributed to the decline in greenhouse gas emissions within scenario 2. Moreover, the research findings indicated that both the intention and the perceived ability to control behavior had a favorable influence on waste reduction and segregation. This result was due to respondents expressing their willingness to participate in waste separation and their confidence in their ability to effectively reduce and separate waste. Therefore, promoting waste separation among customers and staff within shopping centers could potentially enhance waste management. The insights gained from this study offer valuable guidance to policymakers in Nonthaburi Municipality as they address climate change and implement strategies to mitigate its effects.