Environmental assessment of different residual municipal waste managements in the Marche Region (Central Italy) before and during the COVID19 pandemic

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has been deeply and worldwide affecting people daily life as well as ordinary procedures in all working fields since when, at the beginning of 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the pandemic status. In addition of the social problems related to the virus (such as the lack of human interaction, the difficulty to receive adequate assistance), the pandemic has also changed people habits and, as consequence, the quality and quantity of municipal waste (MW) produced. Moreover, the presence of waste streams generated from people infected by SARS-CoV-2 posed the question on how to manage these potentially hazardous wastes. Therefore, the pandemic also influenced and modified the MW management practices. Under this perspective, this study aimed to (i) quantitatively analyse and compare the residual municipal waste (RMW) produced before (reference year, 2019) and during (reference year, 2020) the pandemic and (ii) evaluate and compare the environmental impact (by the Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, method) of the different applied waste management strategies in the periods pre- and post-COVID19. Specifically, two provincial districts (hereafter indicated as P1 and P2, respectively) of the Marche Region (Central Italy, Adriatic Seaside) were chosen because of the data availability and the different RMW management during the pandemic period.