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Waste Management
Climate change is driving improvements in waste management and waste-to-energy projects
There’s no question that waste management is moving up the agenda, driven by the same factors powering other green sectors of the economy. The overarching driver is of course climate change but other factors include pollution control, lack of landfill capacity, resource depletion, and the rising cost of waste disposal.
The average person in the EU disposes of 1200 lbs of trash annually; in the US, the figure is nearer to 1700 lbs. The aggregate totals are roughly 1.3 billion tons per year for the EU, and 260 million tons for the US. Many countries (such as the UK) are running out of space to put all this rubbish into landfill, and on top of that the breakdown of biodegradable waste in landfill generates methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
The waste management industry is being forced to change. In Europe, for instance, it’s being driven by increasingly stringent EU and UK legislation regulating the treatment and disposal of organic waste. In the UK, the 2009 budget imposed a swingeing £8 per annum rise in Landfill Tax until 2013. The UK government is also assessing the case for restrictions on the landfilling of waste and recyclable materials in future.
These challenges are creating new opportunities in the recycling and reprocessing of waste, waste-to-energy programmes, industrial-scale composting plants, and other areas.
The waste-to-energy market, for instance, is expected to be a major growth area in Europe for at least the next ten years, with almost 100 new plants due to come on-line by 2012. Capturing methane from landfill sites (or even old coal mines) and turning it into energy is now becoming big business. The recycling industry employs 1.5 million people worldwide, and has an annual turnover of $1.6 billion. The UK government’s Waste Resource Action Programme estimates that 450 new composting plants will be needed by 2020 to satisfy local authority requirements alone. The EU estimates that it could produce 6 per cent of all its energy from waste by 2030.
In the US, there are currently 445 landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE) projects operational, but a recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency identified a further 535 additional landfill sites as candidates for LFTGE facilities, with the potential to generate 1,200MW of electricity annually.
New techniques are being deployed in landfill management, recycling, and composting to increase efficiencies, reduce emissions, and generate more renewable energy. Food waste, for instance, is being used to power the factories it comes from using anaerobic digestion technologies. Sewage treatment is being revolutionised by the use of advanced anaerobic digestion methods which significantly increase the quantities of energy recovered from waste materials.
Some experts predict that the demand for waste will at some point exceed supply: not only will waste companies be competing to pay for your rubbish, but we may even be mining waste dumps to extract the resources inside them. However, environmental groups claim that building waste-to-energy plants will only encourage people to keep on producing rubbish – and consuming finite resources in the process. The mantra should always be ‘Reduce, Re-use, Recycle’ before anything else.
See our Sector Snapshot for an overview of current trends in global waste management; the Companies Snapshot for a rundown on the key players; and the Companies Directory for profiles on publicly-quoted companies.
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The average person in the EU disposes of 1200 lbs of trash annually; in the US, the figure is nearer to 1700 lbs. The aggregate totals are roughly 1.3 billion tons per year for the EU, and 260 million tons for the US. Many countries (such as the UK) are running out of space to put all this rubbish into landfill, and on top of that the breakdown of biodegradable waste in landfill generates methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
The waste management industry is being forced to change. In Europe, for instance, it’s being driven by increasingly stringent EU and UK legislation regulating the treatment and disposal of organic waste. In the UK, the 2009 budget imposed a swingeing £8 per annum rise in Landfill Tax until 2013. The UK government is also assessing the case for restrictions on the landfilling of waste and recyclable materials in future.
These challenges are creating new opportunities in the recycling and reprocessing of waste, waste-to-energy programmes, industrial-scale composting plants, and other areas.
The waste-to-energy market, for instance, is expected to be a major growth area in Europe for at least the next ten years, with almost 100 new plants due to come on-line by 2012. Capturing methane from landfill sites (or even old coal mines) and turning it into energy is now becoming big business. The recycling industry employs 1.5 million people worldwide, and has an annual turnover of $1.6 billion. The UK government’s Waste Resource Action Programme estimates that 450 new composting plants will be needed by 2020 to satisfy local authority requirements alone. The EU estimates that it could produce 6 per cent of all its energy from waste by 2030.
In the US, there are currently 445 landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE) projects operational, but a recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency identified a further 535 additional landfill sites as candidates for LFTGE facilities, with the potential to generate 1,200MW of electricity annually.
New techniques are being deployed in landfill management, recycling, and composting to increase efficiencies, reduce emissions, and generate more renewable energy. Food waste, for instance, is being used to power the factories it comes from using anaerobic digestion technologies. Sewage treatment is being revolutionised by the use of advanced anaerobic digestion methods which significantly increase the quantities of energy recovered from waste materials.
Some experts predict that the demand for waste will at some point exceed supply: not only will waste companies be competing to pay for your rubbish, but we may even be mining waste dumps to extract the resources inside them. However, environmental groups claim that building waste-to-energy plants will only encourage people to keep on producing rubbish – and consuming finite resources in the process. The mantra should always be ‘Reduce, Re-use, Recycle’ before anything else.
See our Sector Snapshot for an overview of current trends in global waste management; the Companies Snapshot for a rundown on the key players; and the Companies Directory for profiles on publicly-quoted companies.
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By Nick Hanna
Format: Paperback
Pages: 196
Edition: 1st
RRP: £14.99
Due for publication: 24th May 2010
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