LAWR

FOOD WASTE Converting organic waste to energy: Learning from Germany Experiences in Europe show that high rates of recycling, composting and energy from waste (EfW) can and do coexist. Eurostat figures show that Germany sent virtually none of its municipal waste to landfill in 2012 and 35% to EfW plants. How have they done this? Can the UK learn anything from Germany? Christof Langguth explores further. ince 2005 Germany has instigated strict national regulations regarding recycling versus landfilling of waste. Any waste materials that are deemed to have more than 5% organic contents must be pre-treated prior to going to landfill. Organics are removed by several pos- sible methods: thermal use (incinera- tion), recycling or combined mechani- cal and biological treatment (MBT). This requirement has not only increased the amount of waste going to EfW, but has also contributed toward the construc- tion of thermal waste plants to the extent that Germany is a net importer of large quantities of waste to be used as 'fuel'. As for organic waste collections and similar to the UK there are huge regional differences which can some- times relate to the type of housing - for example orga nic capture rates amongst high rise flats tends to be significantly reduced over terraced housing. Even though the collection rate of house- hold organic waste in Germany is cur- rently approximately 56% *1 , there is still a large potential for improvement. Given a total of 11.7m tonnes organic waste per year the uncollected percentage of 44% could potentially produce approximately 1.2 billion m³ biogas (7,000 GWh). In relation to anaerobic digestion (AD), Germany has nearly 8000 AD plants compared to the UK's 148 opera- tional sites. Almost all of Germany's AD plants use energy crops and manure as their main feedstock. Commercial and industrial Of the total amount of processed AD feedstock in Germany, only 7% *2 consists of commercial, industrial and domestic organic waste. Therefore, its vast amount of plants do not mean very much. As far as EfW is concerned the unused potential described earlier would probably not be accessible for many companies because the waste sector in Germany is dominated by a few large disposal firms. The regulations which were intro- duced to divert waste going to land- fill has unfortunately not significantly increased the use of organic waste in AD, composting or other forms of recycling. However, the amount of waste incin- eration or 'thermal use' has increased. The main aims of Government poli- cies ensured initial high margins for the disposal companies and therefore a subsequent construction boom for waste incineration plants. With slightly decreasing total amounts of waste per head in Germany this has led to a dramatic under-capac- ity with some negative effects for the people and environment. Waste incin- eration is charged up to €190 per tonne *3 and in order to get the minimum degree of capacity utilisation to run the plant, waste is imported from foreign countries. The lesson to learn from Germany would be to put in place incentives for effective use of the AD potential of organic waste. The introduction of legislation to 'pre-treat' waste before landfill disposal does not necessarily increase the amount of reused waste. The waste hierarchy in all its different forms should be adopted. First of all waste should be avoided, then recycled then if all else fails, disposed of. AD can be an important technology to make most of the energy potential of the organic fraction and in Germany we feel it has not been fully utilised nor the legislative framework been introduced to drive waste towards AD before incineration. Christof Langguth is technical sales manager at biogas technology specialist MT-Energie UK. The group's head office is located in Germany. Sources *1) www.prognos.com *2) http://de.statista.com *3) http://de.statista.com 16 Local Authority Waste & Recycling November 2014 S • Figures from Eurostat show that the UK sent 37% of it s municipal waste to landfill in 2012 and incinerated 17% of it. Facts and figures

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