One man's trash is another man's treasure

Fabio Poretti, Technical & Scientific Officer, and Ella Stengler, Managing Director, Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants (CEWEP), Belgium/Germany, highlight how waste-to-energy has a pivotal role to play in moving towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon, circular economy, and how it can help Europe achieve some of the objectives listed in the European Green Deal.

Climate and sustainability goals are the two new pillars of the European Union (EU) and they have become the driving force behind almost every decision taken by the new European Commission so far. Shortly after taking office in December 2019, the new executive presented their impressive master plan – the European Green Deal. The Commission is seeking not only to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, but is also introducing numerous environmental, energy, and financial proposals in order to make Europe more sustainable in general.

This article will highlight how waste-to-energy (WtE) – through the enabling of a full circular economy and contributing to climate protection – will play a pivotal role towards some of the ambitious objectives of the European Green Deal.

Outlook of the waste-to-energy sector in Europe

Many of the products used in society are not designed to be easily repaired and are often made from mixed materials which cannot be easily recycled. While we should do everything to reduce waste generation upfront, current production methods and consumption patterns will continue to create vast amounts of residual waste. Even if all waste streams were separately collected, it is not possible to recycle 100% of them. In line with the waste hierarchy, WtE is the most environmentally-sound

treatment for recovering value from residual waste. The circular economy also needs an outlet for residual waste that cannot be recycled in practice.

The essential role of WtE is indeed to offer a sanitary service to society, still as necessary nowadays as it was in the past. In the past, waste was burned as a means to deal with infectious diseases, e.g. cholera, and even though society has come a long way, hygiene and health are still strongly related. Today, the world has been reminded by this importance while facing the COVID-19 challenge. Some sanitary items cannot be reused or recycled and it must be ensured that germs and viruses are safely destroyed.

WtE is designed to thermally treat residues from households, industry, or businesses by incinerating them under strictly controlled conditions to generate energy. WtE is in fact one of the most stringently regulated industrial sectors in Europe and multiple studies have found no evidence of a negative impact of WtE on health or the environment. WtE acts as a secure, final sink for pollutants, and it guarantees reliable waste treatment, 24 hours a day, all year round.1

Currently there are approximately 500 WtE plants operating across Europe, treating more than 96 million tpy of residual, non-recyclable waste.

Reducing landfill and supporting quality recycling in the waste management sector

Almost half of EU Member States are still heavily reliant on landfilling. Valuable resources are being buried with the risk of contaminating soil and groundwater. In 2019 in the

EU27, approximately 54 million t of municipal waste were landfilled, which corresponds to 24% of municipal waste treatment. During 2001 - 2019, landfill rates in the EU27 fell sharply while material and energy recovery rates rose almost similarly. This shows that WtE and recycling are complementary and work very well together to reduce landfilling. Furthermore, with increasing recycling rates, WtE will be needed to also treat the rejects from recycling and sorting facilities, additionally to the residual waste remaining after source separation. This is the case for municipal waste as well as commercial and industrial waste.

Figure 1. Number of waste-to-energy (WtE) plants in Europe and amount of waste treated per country in 2018.

Figure 2. Municipal waste treatment in 2019 (EU27 plus UK, Norway, and Switzerland). Source: CEWEP graph based on EUROSTAT figures.

Figure 3. Municipal waste treatment trends in EU27 for 2001 - 2019.

More circularity and less unsustainable waste routes

On 11 March 2020, the European Commission published its new Circular Economy Action Plan introducing a new set of ambitious proposals for circularity, from product design to sustainable waste management. One of the most timely and important elements of this new communication for the waste management sector in Europe was the announced intention to restrict “exports of waste that have harmful environmental and health impacts in third countries.” This, and the increasing environmental and climate pressures, just confirm that it is the obligation of European society to deal with its potentially harmful waste in Europe, where it is produced.

In a shift away from a linear economic model, in 2018 the EU already adopted the Circular Economy Package. The package introduced new waste management targets. For municipal waste, it set a 10% cap for landfilling and a recycling target of 65% by 2035.

In a desirable scenario where all these targets would be reached, there will still be a need to treat residual waste that cannot be recycled in an environmentally-sound way.

In addition, municipal waste is only a small part of the whole waste volume. In industrialised countries, approximately 50% of the waste treated by WtE comes from commercial and industrial waste, for which there are currently no targets set.

CEWEP assessed the capacity needs for waste treatment in Europe in 2035, assuming that the 65%

recycling target of municipal waste would be met and, even more ambitiously, that 68% of non-hazardous commercial and industrial waste would be recycled, and not more than 10% sent to landfills. With this scenario in mind, CEWEP estimated that approximately 126 million t of residual waste treatment capacity would still be needed in EU27 by 2035.2

The current WtE capacity in EU27 is approximately 80 million t and the capacity for co-incineration, mostly in cement kilns, is around 9 million t. This would leave a gap of approximately 30 - 40 million t which must be closed if ambitious recycling and landfill reduction targets are to be met.

When there is not enough residual waste treatment capacity, possible side effects can occur such as growth in illegal dumping and open burning of waste. Illegal dumping does not only happen in third world countries, there are some notable examples also in Europe. Through recent years, the media has reported a dramatic increase in cross-border waste trafficking and dumping in Northern France, while Poland has been struggling with waste being stored illegally and set on fire. In Italy, critical situations have also been continuously reported.3 Moreover, an Interpol report also alerted a sharp rise in plastic waste crime4 – and this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is essential to avoid how that waste could find its way to cheaper or non-sustainable solutions that would interfere with the holistic approach that a good waste management system should always have.

Figure 4. Estimated waste treatment capacity needs in EU27 in 2035.

Figure 5. WtE’s contribution to the energy cycle annually.

WtE as an effective technology for energy and climate goals

The climate ambition is at the very top of the political agenda in Brussels. On 4 March 2020, the European Commission published its proposal on the first European Climate Law which aims at setting in law the EU target of climate neutrality by 2050. On 21 April 2021, a provisional agreement was reached between the European Parliament and the Council, “setting into law the objective of a climate-neutral EU by 2050, and a collective, net greenhouse gas emissions reduction target (emissions after deduction of removals) of at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990.” In order to align the current legislation with the new and more ambitious targets, several policy tools are now under revision.

An important legislative proposal is expected from the Commission in summer 2021 with the ‘Fit for 55’ package. This will include assessments in important cornerstones of the European Green Deal legislation such as the revision of the EU Emissions Trading System and the Effort Sharing Regulation, the revision of the Energy Taxation Directive, the amendment to the Renewable Energy Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive, the definition of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and many more. The Fit for 55 package will cover a wide range of policy areas, where WtE will keep playing an important role towards climate protection and mitigation.

As stated previously, the pivotal task of WtE is guaranteeing a hygienic service to society, safely treating the residual, non-recyclable waste produced by communities and industries. At the same time, WtE generates as much energy as possible, substituting fossil fuels for the equivalent production of electricity and heat. Between 11 - 53 million tpy of fossil fuels (gas, oil, hard coal, and lignite) can be substituted, which would emit between 26 - 52 million t of CO2.

European WtE plants produce enough electricity to supply almost 19 million people per year. WtE can provide a local source of baseload power that complements intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind or solar, while at the same time making Europe less dependent on fossil fuel imports. More than 60% of WtE plants in Europe are combined heat and power (CHP) plants which provide heat to urban district heating and cooling networks, as well as electricity. WtE plants are able to provide approximately 16 million people in Europe with heat annually. Considerable climate benefits are achieved when WtE plants provide steam to be used by the neighbouring industrial companies that can in turn decommission their fossil-fuelled boilers. Today almost 10% of Europe’s energy covered by district heating comes from WtE. In some urban areas, energy from waste covers more than 50% of the residents’ heat demand – a significant contribution to energy security and air quality, as residents avoid using individual boilers for heating.

A large advantage of WtE is also the possibility to rely on programmability and flexibility of energy production, delivering

energy vectors in various forms (electricity, heat, steam, etc.). This also allows for many possibilities of sector coupling and industrial symbiosis to be explored. As an example, some European WtE plants have started to successfully contribute to the decarbonisation of public transport through the production of hydrogen – which can be used afterwards for city buses and waste trucks. By doing so, WtE plants circulate energy through innovative solutions helping to decarbonise two hard-to-abate sectors such as industry and transport.

Additionally, approximately half of the energy produced from WtE is qualified as renewable as it comes from waste of biological origin. The exact amount of this part depends on the biodegradable (organic) fraction of the waste input, which is determined by consumer behaviour, local waste management systems, etc. Despite the growing of source separation of bio-waste, a significant fraction of biodegradable matter will still be present in residual waste produced by municipalities but also commercial and industrial facilities. With this regard, approximately half of the CO2 produced by the thermal treatment of residual waste is biogenic, hence carbon neutral. The remaining (fossil) half of energy from waste is recovered as a waste treatment service to society.

Other than CO2 emissions savings through fossil fuels substitution, a second important contribution of GHG savings from WtE comes from landfill diversion. Decomposing waste in landfills generates methane – a greenhouse gas 86 times more potent than CO2 on a 20 years perspective. As demonstrated before, even with the recent progress on recycling rates, Europe still landfills significant amounts of municipal waste annually. Considering also commercial and industrial waste, in total, Europe landfills approximately 175 million t of nonmineral waste emitting more than 140 million t of CO2-eq per year. As stated by the German Federal Environment Agency, “Diversion from landfill is the main contributor to GHG mitigation in the waste management sector.”5 Also, a recent UN report, ‘Global Methane Assessment - Summary for Decision Makers’ suggested that the largest potential in Europe for mitigating methane emissions occurs in the waste sector. If these 175 million t could be diverted from landfills to waste treatment options higher in the waste hierarchy, such as quality recycling and WtE, they would deliver 153 million tpy of CO2-eq savings.

Further CO2-eq savings can be also achieved in WtE plants through the recovery of valuable raw materials such as metals and minerals from bottom ash – the residues from the combustion process. More than 3 million t of CO2-eq emissions are saved by recovering metals from bottom ash each year. As an example, the amount of iron recovered from European bottom ash each year could be used to build approximately 6000 wind turbines.

Finally, with the ultimate goal to reach higher climate mitigation efforts, numerous European WtE plants are also exploring carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) technologies that have the potential to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the sector or even to make it carbon negative. These technologies will need further investments to provide effective cost abatement at a wider scale. This will be further explored in the coming years and will have to come

Figure 6. Fuel cell bus powered by hydrogen produced at the Wuppertal waste-to-energy plant in Germany. Source: AWG Wuppertal.

Figure 7. CO2 capture installation at the AVR waste-to-energy plant in Duiven, the Netherlands. Source: AVR.

along with the development of a market and legislation for the removal and use of captured CO .2

Conclusion

The WtE sector has, aside from its hygienic task to treat residual waste in a safe manner, a pivotal role to play in moving towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon, circular economy. WtE is an established, secure, and sustainable renewable energy provider for both electricity and heat from residual materials which cannot be further recycled.

Landfills are still a big elephant in the room in the European waste management sector but diverting waste from them has numerous benefits, including greenhouse gas mitigation, environmental and health advantages, while boosting recycling and recovery.

In light of the EU’s newly set goals of 55% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050, the WtE sector will continue to support the European Green Deal and its ambitious targets.

References

1. CEWEP, Collection of Studies, Health and Environment Section, (June 2021). 2. Calculations peer reviewed by Prognos, (2019). 3. Corriere della Sera, (October 2019) and (June 2020). 4. INTERPOL, ‘Emerging criminal trends in the global plastic waste market since January 2018’, (August 2020). 5. The Climate Change Mitigation Potential of the Waste Sector, Öko-Institut and IFEU on behalf of German Federal Environment Agency (UBA), (2015).