Ways to commercialise waste

Materials recovery facilities (MRFs) are integral in shaping today’s and tomorrow’s circular economy, and form part of an overall waste strategy. However, to function effectively and affordably, a feasibility study must be undertaken, since each site is unique, says Richard Emery, executive associate manager, JG Afrika.

By Alastair Currie

MRFs are becoming increasingly common in South Africa, given the pressing need to shift waste streams away from landfills and focus on recycling as a key activity. MRFs come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from large-scale industrial set-ups for bulk interventions to smaller-scale operations that make provision for community-based and labour-intensive projects. The latter provide much-needed employment while preserving the environment, but the caveat is that specialist management and a constant source of saleable waste streams are essential.

“Commercial facilities are typically set up to handle tonnages ranging from 1 200 to 1 500 tonnes per month and require multimillionrand investments, given the high level of mechanisation likely required,” explains Emery.

“However, there’s plenty of opportunity for more grassroot facilities in the 300 to 500 tonne per month range, costing anywhere from R2 to R40 million, where manual sorting is the central production process and the barrier to entry is relatively low,” he continues. “This is definitely an area where municipalities should focus on implementing workable systems. That could include paying a subsidy to MRF operators.”

JG Afrika has extensive experience in designing small and large MRFs. At the top end of the scale, current examples include the design of a privately owned clean packaging plant in Cape Town. This will handle products that include paper, plastics, metals and glass.

As Emery points out, the secret to survival in the waste business is waste stream flexibility. Part of the reason for this is the present commodity price volatility of the international recycled waste industry. Large global buyers like China have a major influence. Therefore, to remain competitive, MRF owners need to ensure that their facilities make provision for multiple and parallel production lines and commodity price changes now and in the future. In this way, they can shift the focus away from paper to metals, for example, according to buyer demand.

Given the right scale, MRFs can present excellent opportunities for public-private partnerships (PPPs), either as standalone operations or in conjunction with existing and new landfills. However, the opportunity needs to be big enough.

“JG Afrika provides transactional advisory services for a wide range of waste management interventions,” Emery explains. A case in point is a new initiative being rolled out by Eden District Municipality. This PPP project entails the establishment of new domestic solid waste and hazardous waste sites. A waste diversion model forms part of this.

Waste characterisation assessment

To facilitate the process at municipal level, JG Afrika has developed a series of Excelbased tools to assist in conducting waste characterisation studies. These are vital for a successful outcome. Based on the type and volume of saleable recyclable materials, such as cardboard and aluminium, municipalities can punch in the numbers and then estimate the size and scope of each MRF in terms of product throughput, which then leads to the calculation of potential sales turnover.

“The point to emphasise is that an MRF must operate as a business and be run by specialists with a working understanding of the waste recycling market. So, size isn’t the issue: a small MRF can run as a going concern and then scale up to greater things,” Emery continues. “To start with, for example, a model as basic as 1 tonne per day of compost could work. Prospective entrepreneurs need to target the low-hanging fruit. For example, plastic bottles are easy to source and transport, while glass is heavy and expensive to ship to a waste buyer.”

Dirty MRFs

Clean, source-separated waste is vital as an avoided processing cost at a recycler. Dirty

MRFs are not sustainable on their own, currently. That’s because clean waste is far easier and less costly to capture and repurpose. A prime example is paper: if it’s clean and baled, then it’s ideal for shredding back into pulp. If it’s contaminated by liquids or food wastes, or mixed with other material types, like plastics, it’s more costly for a downstream buyer to do their own separation.

“There are places for dirty MRFs, but not from a sole business plan viewpoint; rather as a precursor to something else,” says Emery. “Even if the volumes are there, the current market is generally priced too low. For this reason, dirty MRFs need alignment with a bigger-picture approach, where the end game has a dual purpose – for example, the extraction of paper and sale of the residual organics for incineration in a waste-to-energy plant.”

To effect change, people and businesses need to be ready when it comes to recycling; however, one of the key stumbling blocks is that disposal to landfill is still relatively cheap

in South Africa. Emery says that policy needs to make this more costly to help incentivise a permanent culture shift.

South Africa also needs to add value to waste in promoting a vibrant recycling sector, by, for example, implementing a deposit on recyclable plastic bottles, and establishing more buy-back centres. Perhaps some of the funds generated from the carbon tax could be channelled into formalised MRF initiatives.

Multipronged approach

South Africa’s Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF) embraces the value of MRFs in the mix, and has been engaging with JG Afrika in the development of workable recommendations. A key MRF study was recently conducted by Emery, together with JG Afrika technical consultant Aiden Bowers and DEFF project manager Malcolm Mogotsi. This was the subject of a presentation at Landfill 2019.

“Based on our experience, one of our first observations is that the development of a onceoff blueprint is not possible,” Emery asserts. “Our recommendations are that all prospective MRF operators plan and understand what can be achieved for each specific site, what’s reasonable and appropriate.”

In the future, old landfill sites in South Africa could be mined for their commodities, as is the case in other parts of the world. As prime greenfield opportunities become scarcer in urban centres, there’s also a local and international trend towards remediating contaminated brownfield and waste sites, and placing the land back into productive use. In fact, JG Afrika is currently working on a project where the intention is to build a housing development on an old industrial landfill site.

“Basic economics dictate that underpricing landfilling will continue to lead to its overuse, while alternatives like MRFs are still being overlooked as part of a municipal waste diversion strategy. MRFs are definitely part of the solution,” he adds.

“Either way, as older landfills close and licences are not issued for new ones, waste diversion and recycling could become commonplace but we need to have the culture change. But why wait?” Emery concludes.