FEATURED TOPIC – ORGANICS
Road to zero carbon waste management Image credit: KVA Buchs
DR MARC STAMMBACH, MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR HITACHI ZOSEN INOVA AUSTRALIA, SAYS AUSTRALIA MUST FACE SOME STARK REALITIES TO BECOME CARBON NEUTRAL BY 2050. HE SHARES HIS VIEWS WITH WMR.
HZI will construct a hydrogen production facility at the Energy-from-Waste plant in Buchs.
T
he waste management sector contributes about three per cent to Australia’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions according to the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. The Australian Government wants the nation to be carbon neutral by 2050 but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently suggested the nation stabilise and reduce carbon emissions by 2025. If this information doesn’t bother you, you have won the ‘climate change
52 / WMR / June 2022
snakes and ladders’ game and may declare yourself a winner. The readers left in the game are facing some stark realities, among those, the three per cent GHG contribution by the waste sector will be more like 15 per cent once we replace the fossil fuel power stations with renewable energy generation. Also, our residual waste is still going to landfills. The nation’s population growth has neutralised any improved diversion rates. Landfilled waste is a net contributor to climate change as typical
landfills have gas capture rates of 40 to 70 per cent. What we landfill today will continue to spew landfill gas over the next 50 years. Hence, even if we stop landfilling today, we shall continue to emit beyond 2050. It is timely to propose some winning moves. We must separate the recyclables and food and green organics out of our waste stream. This needs to happen now and be mandated. Let’s increase the landfill levies to $180/t nationwide, similar to levels
