Life Cycle Assessment of a Gas-Electric Hybrid Waste Collection Vehicle – Comparison with Conventional Waste Collection Vehicles

Abstract

The waste and recycling company Renova AB has developed a new type of waste collection vehicle, which has been used and evaluated for waste collection in central Gothenburg for a few years. What distinguishes this type of vehicle from conventional waste collection vehicles is, firstly, that it uses natural gas to drive instead of diesel, and secondly, that it turns the combustion engine off at the collection stops and uses electric power to load and compact waste. In this master’s thesis the environmental performance of such a gas-electric hybrid waste collection vehicle was evaluated in comparison with a conventional diesel vehicle and a natural gas vehicle without the hybrid technique. Life cycle assessment was used to consider environmental impact from production, use, maintenance and repair and end-of-life treatment of the vehicles. The results showed that the hybrid vehicles contribute less to some environmental impact categories, but more to others, compared to the other vehicle types. From an overall evaluation of the results, it was concluded that hybrid vehicles are environmentally preferable to diesel vehicles when used in central Gothenburg. It is more uncertain whether they are preferable to conventional gas vehicles or not. They have, however, potentials for further development. It was also concluded that the use phase is the most important part of the life cycle to develop in order to improve the environmental performance of waste collection vehicles.