Waging Wars on Waste: Opportunities Abound in Waste Management Infrastructure
As countries across Asia figure out how to deal with growing piles of trash, many are investing in waste management infrastructure to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills. Increase in waste generation is linked to the rise in population, urbanization, income level, and industrialization all of which is happening at a fast pace in Asia. According to the World Bank’s estimate waste generation in Asia is expected to more than double by 2025.
Author: Pimjai Hoontrakul
Published in Bangkok Post newspaper / Asia Focus Section 12 June 2017
As countries across Asia figure out how to deal with growing piles of trash, many are investing in waste management infrastructure to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills. Increase in waste generation is linked to the rise in population, urbanization, income level, and industrialization all of which is happening at a fast pace in Asia. According to the World Bank’s estimate waste generation in Asia is expected to more than double by 2025.
The rapid rise in economic growth over the past decades has already stretched waste management systems in many cities across the continent. Overflowing landfills, illegal dump sites, and environmental impacts from unsanitary landfills are constant problems that affect both local communities around landfills as well as the wider society. In 2014 alone, there were 15 incidents of landfill fires in Thailand; the largest of which was Praksa Landfill in Samut Prakarn province which took over one week to contain, set off an evacuation of residents in a 1.5-kilometer radius, and an eventual closure of the site.
Against this backdrop, the Thai government has declared waste management to be a National Agenda. Waste-to-energy plants have become an important element in integrated waste management system. The target for municipal solid waste (MSW) WTE generation capacity in the latest Alternative Energy Development Plan released in 2015 was increased to 500 MW from 160 MW in the earlier 2012 version. EIC estimates that over 50,000 million baht of additional investment in WTE plants will be needed to reach the target.
Waste-to-energy (WTE) has become an important waste management strategy for other countries in the region as well. China alone plans to build 300 waste-to-energy plants between 2016 to 2019. It is building what will become the largest waste-to-energy plan in the world capable of burning up to 5,000 tons of trash per day. In comparison, Bangkok Metropolitan Area generates around 10,000 tons of waste per day while its only WTE plant in Nong Kham have a capacity of only 300 – 500 tons of trash per day. On a smaller scale, the city of Yangon is building a WTE plant to incinerate 60 tons of trash per day; the city plans to build more WTE plants as the rate of waste generation and demand for electricity increase alongside economic activities.
To be clear WTE plants are not energy solution; they are waste management methods. There are cleaner and cheaper ways to generate electricity. One major concerns in WTE plants is the air emission which contains harmful substances such as dioxins, mercury, heavy metals, and acid gases. In addition, ashes leftover from incineration could be considered hazardous waste and need to be disposed of as such. This calls for more stringent environmental requirements for WTE plants both to limit negative impacts on the environment as well as to the surrounding communities. Environmental protection features make the cost of constructing and operating a WTE plant higher than other combustion based technology such as biomass power plants.
There are various ways to make waste-to-energy plants more efficient and less hazardous. First, promote trash separation at point-of-generation to ensure that hazardous waste such as batteries and light bulbs do not enter the municipal waste stream. This will require investment in waste collection system as well as separation, sorting, and hazardous waste management facilities. Most importantly consumers must do their part to separate waste at the home and in their daily lives. Thus, awareness raising campaigns must be part of the integrated waste management strategy. Better trash separation should help to lessen the impact of WTE to the environment and increase public acceptance of such plants.
Second, reduce the amount of organic content entering WTE plants as the moisture from organic material decreases the efficiency of combustion process. Here, investments in composting plants make sense for countries with high percentage organic waste. In Malaysia’s state of Selangor, a composting plant was built to divert food scraps and food waste from a nearby wholesale wet market; thus, reducing the amount of organic waste in municipal waste stream as well as reduce transportation cost of those wastes. In addition, composting plants could generate additional revenue stream for waste management companies. In Thailand, compost from municipal solid waste can be sold as high as 3,500 baht per ton.
Third, improve the quality of feedstock in the WTE process. One way is to use refused-derived-fuel (RDF). RDF is produced by separating and shredding waste so that it meets certain specifications to be used as fuel. The advantage of using RDF instead of directly using municipal solid waste is that it ensures quality in term of fuel consistency and heating value. Although, the use of RDF is not necessary in WTE, many plant operators will look to using RDF to improve operational efficiency of their power plants, control ash quality, reduce non-scheduled maintenance, and ensure predictable electricity generation. In addition to WTE power plants, RDF can be used as fossil fuel substitute for other energy intensive industry such as cement plants. The RDF market opportunity will increase in line with WTE expansion.
Asia’s waste sector is experiencing rapid growth, as waste management shift from out-of-sight out-of-mind collect and dispose models to more integrated and technology driven treatment systems where trash is turned into revenue streams, investment in waste management infrastructure such as WTE plants, composting facility, and RDF processing plants will be badly needed.
Even as new waste-to-energy plants are built, they do not appear to be having a significant impact. At current rate, the disposal of waste through energy recovery cannot keep pace with waste generation. To make our cities more sustainable, our goal should not be to maximize the number of WTE plants, rather it should be to substantially reduce trash being sent to landfills through the old adage of 3R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.