Disaster waste management after flood events

Abstract Large amounts of waste debris occur in urbanised areas when heavy rain on local geology generates flooding and landslides. Improved understanding of disaster waste management helps to support future strategies. This study aims to find management solutions that are environmentally and economically sustainable, hypothesizing three different options. There are many variables which influence the environmental impact and the operational cost. The distances between the areas of interest and the management site, the extent of a first manual sorting carried out by citizens, the economic load of each involved step. Overall, both the environmental and the economic analysis confirmed the usefulness of the non‐advanced option, which includes a temporary debris storage site for a preliminary shredding. On the other hand, the impact due to a possible biological treatment is not balanced by the advantage of the further volume decrease. The article shows a simple analysis schema, easily adaptable to different geographical context, is useful as supporting tool for the decision makers in flood emergency scenarios.