ESSIE Seminar: Applying LCA and SMM for Strategic Climate and Cost Impacts, Malak Anshassi, Florida Polytech

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Integrating sustainability into solid waste management presents both an engineering and policy challenge, demanding solutions evaluated for systemic environmental and economic impact. This is precisely where frameworks like Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) become invaluable. The core concepts of SMM, supported by analytical tools like LCA, provide a structured way to translate sustainability goals into practical, actionable strategies. This work applies these tools across scales, first examining the climate and cost implications of changing recycling programs (or even eliminating them entirely) in specific contexts like Florida, as well as national across the US. It then expands to a global perspective, posing a critical strategic question: where does investment in waste management yield the greatest benefit? The findings hint that money spent to build basic waste systems in underserved regions could curb more global emissions and plastic pollution than funding upgrades in places that are already advanced.

Malak Anshassi is an assistant professor at Florida Polytechnic University teaching solid waste management, sustainability, and life cycle assessment courses. Her research focuses on incorporating life cycle thinking into solid waste management. She previously conducted research using principles from sustainable materials management (or SMM) to analyze the application of life cycle thinking into Florida’s solid waste management system to achieve the 75% recycling rate target. In her current research she formulates SMM-based solid waste management and policy approaches that decision makers from any region of the world can use to measure their waste management system’s environmental and economic impacts.