Analytical framework and data for a municipal solid waste environmental performance assessment

This article contains (i) a set of spreadsheets with data compiled from municipal sanitation or solid waste plans, and (ii) data of the individual and aggregate performance indicators. These indicators have been published in the Journal of Cleaner Production in the article entitled “A municipal solid waste indicator for environmental impact: assessment and identification of best management practices.” The data contained in the spreadsheets are divided as follows: worksheet 1 includes the municipal solid waste generation data from the Brazilian municipalities studied; worksheet 2 presents the individual indicators that form the aggregate indicator; worksheet 3 presents the aggregate indicator and the classification of the municipalities; worksheet 4 provides data correlation; worksheets 5 to 10 depict boxplot graphs of the data; and worksheets 11 to 14 present graphs of individual indicators on a per capita basis and the ranking of municipalities.


a b s t r a c t
This article contains (i) a set of spreadsheets with data compiled from municipal sanitation or solid waste plans, and (ii) data of the individual and aggregate performance indicators. These indicators have been published in the Journal of Cleaner Production in the article entitled "A municipal solid waste indicator for environmental impact: assessment and identification of best management practices." The data contained in the spreadsheets are divided as follows: worksheet 1 includes the municipal solid waste generation data from the Brazilian municipalities studied; worksheet 2 presents the individual indicators that form the aggregate indicator; worksheet 3 presents the aggregate indicator and the classification of the municipalities; worksheet 4 provides data correlation; worksheets 5 to 10 depict boxplot graphs of the data; and worksheets 11 to 14 present graphs of individual indicators on a per capita basis and the ranking of municipalities.

Data
The datasheets contain data collected from municipal solid waste or sanitation plans. The datasheets also include data for the calculation of individual and aggregate indicators, which were collected from government and non-governmental organizations datasets. Timespan for the data is 1 year. Fig. 1 shows the municipalities that were considered in this study. The article contains a spreadsheet data file (.xlsx format) with the following data tabs:   [1].

Value of the Data
The data can be used locally to assess the environmental impacts of municipal solid waste management in small municipalities in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. They may be used more broadly by those aiming at implementing efficient and effective aggregate indicators at other small municipalities. The data benefit researchers who want to establish comparisons with their own data or use the data presented in this paper to develop and test new aggregate indicators. The data may also help public managers to elaborate better waste management policies aimed at improving the quality of public services provided to the population. With minor adjustments or increments, such as the addition of new social and economic indicators, the data structure can be used to assess all dimensions of urban solid waste management sustainability, as well as to outline strategies for sustainable development.
Worksheet 8 (entitled "GDP GRAPH"): descriptive summary of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data and their outliers. This worksheet also contains a boxplot graph of the data; Worksheet 9 (entitled "WQI GRAPH"): descriptive summary of Waste Quality Index (WQI) data and their outliers. This worksheet also contains a boxplot graph of the data; Worksheet 10 (entitled "WASTE GENERATION GRAPH"): descriptive summary of waste generation data and their outliers. This worksheet also contains a boxplot graph of the data; Worksheet 11 (entitled "ENERGY RANK"): annual per capita indicator data and the ranking of municipalities for energy consumption. This worksheet also contains a graph of the ranking; Worksheet 12 (entitled "CO2E RANK"): annual per capita indicator data and the ranking of municipalities for CO 2 e. This worksheet also contains a graph of the ranking; Worksheet 13 (entitled "WQI RANK"): annual per capita indicator data and the ranking of municipalities for WQI. This worksheet also contains a graph of the ranking; Worksheet 14 (entitled "WASTE GENERATION RANK"): annual per capita indicator data and the ranking of municipalities for waste generation. This worksheet also contains a graph of the ranking; 2. Experimental design, materials, and methods

Selection of municipalities
This study adopted a secondary data extraction method to obtain data from small municipalities (up to 10,000 inhabitants) in the State of São Paulo. The inclusion criteria consisted of all necessary data for the performance of life cycle assessment, such as waste generation, composition, recycling and composting rate, being available for the municipality. Of a total of 645 municipalities in São Paulo State, 273 are small municipalities, and of these, a total of 123 municipalities were excluded from the sample due to unviable, corrupted, vitiated, unrealistic, or partially available data, resulting in 150 municipalities being analyzed (Fig. 1).

Data collection
Each municipality considered was analyzed based on the waste management practices included in its municipal plans of basic sanitation or solid waste plans. Data was gathered in structured spreadsheets and they present the total amount of each type of waste and their destination, the amount of waste that is recycled and composted, and the distance traveled by the waste to the landfill, composting, and/or recycling units. The general gravimetric composition of municipal solid waste was collected from solid waste plans for small municipalities in São Paulo State.

Waste Reduction Model
For assessment of individual indicators data, the Waste Reduction Model (WARM), Version 14, from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a widely applied model in many different cities around the world [2e6], was used to process the data.

Indicators data (outputs)
At the final stage, the environmental impacts data of municipalities are presented in the spreadsheets as CO 2 equivalent, which comprises the set of gases that contribute to global warming, and the energy consumption [7].

Aggregate indicator
An aggregate data performance indicator is presented in the spreadsheet. The components of the aggregate indicator are the per capita waste generation, which is widely used [6], the per capita emission of CO 2 e, the per capita energy consumption, and the Waste Quality Index (WQI), developed by CETESB [8]. The WQI evaluates final disposal sites for solid waste from a technical and environmental point of view. Its value may range from 0.0 to 10.0 points, with values below 7.0 points indicating poor landfill conditions, while points ranging from 7.1 to 10.0 indicate sufficient landfill conditions.

Calculating the aggregate indicator
Each indicator (I) was normalized using the relative maximum and minimum values (Equation (1)) from the data collected and presented in the spreadsheet. The normalization generated indicators with values ranging from 0 to 1 [1].
I ¼ x i À x i;min x i;max À x i;min (1) where x i,max and x i,min are the maximum and minimum values based on the data, for each indicator (i), respectively. After normalization, the aggregation was performed by computing the geometric mean of the normalized indicators, according to Equation (2). All indicators were given equal weight (1/4). The aggregate indicator (AI) varies between 0 and 1.
where WG I is the normalized indicator of solid waste generation (kg inhabitant À1 year À1 ), GHG I is the normalized indicator of CO 2 e emission, EC I is the normalized indicator of energy consumption and WQI I is the normalized indicator of Waste Quality Index (WQI). All collected and processed data are presented in the spreadsheet.