Paper and plastic are better used for fuel, heat and electricity than being recycled. Recycling paper and plastic consumes more energy and resources than it saves, says a new-fangled report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
A Wasted Opportunity calls on the UK government to make energy-from-waste (EfW) plants a key component of its renewable energy portfolio. Currently, most legislation regards EfW plants as waste-treating incinerators rather than energy-generation plants. The approach is very different in most parts of Europe, where recycling and EfW are both used to their optimum potential. The study laments that energy-from-waste plants are "regarded as a less-than desirable" option than recycling.
Why should recycling remain the best solution for ever? What if there is no demand for recycled materials? What if more energy is consumed and more greenhouse gases emitted in the recycling process than would be used to create a new product? And the worse of the lot, what if we don’t actually recycle but instead just sort the waste into piles of different materials and then ship those piles overseas with no control over what happens to them after that?
With public feeling the heat of global energy price rise, there is a pressing demand to find sustainable and secure sources of energy, using reliable, well-proven technologies. There is also a need to find ways to meet the material and energy needs whilst rapidly and significantly cutting the greenhouse gas emissions.
In recent years the Institution of Mechanical Engineers has been advocating that waste should not be regarded as a problem to be ‘dealt with’ but as a valuable resource which could help us meet our national and regional environmental targets and commitments. Recycling is an effective method to deal with metal waste. But it's easy and cost-effective to use many other types of waste to provide electricity, heat or fuels, according to the Institution. Plastic, especially, has high energy content.
An EfW plant should not be seen as a waste treatment plant but more precisely as a power station or a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) station. A thermal EfW plant, in particular, ‘treats’ waste in the same way that a coal-fired power station ‘treats’ coal. Any other benefit, such as volumetric reduction, is a useful by-product.
The UK is using some, but not enough, waste-to-energy plants to deal with its 310 million metric tons of waste each year. By 2005 19 EfW plants were in operation, with 11 in various stages of development. Almost all the plants use combustion to treat waste, but other methods include gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion.
The state reaching a legally binding renewable energy commitment is implausible unless EfW plants cease to be regarded as a less-desirable form of waste treatment process and become regarded as the best-proven, safe and clean energy recovery solution available.
