The development of separation technology is advancing at such a rate that the potential impact upon the UK infrastructure cannot be ignored. We have been so involved in the to commingle or not to commingle debate that we are not seeing the wider picture and how it could potentially impact upon the UK.
We are starting to see the growth of a whole new breed of Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) that can take municipal waste and process it to acceptable levels.
One of the most modern plants is in Cyprus which was funded by the European Union and takes 200,000 tonnes of municipal waste and processes it through a numberof mechanical and optical sorting techniques.
This process alone provides up to a 70% recycling rate with the residual material being suitable for an anaerobic digestion process.
The Cyprus plant is by no means unique and we are starting to see these facilities being planned and constructed in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
The recycling rates are so high in these plants that it actually in certain circumstances negates the need for a kerbside or bring system recycling infrastructure.
Funds
The recycling and waste treatment time line of the developing counties does not have and does not want to have the funds for setting up separate collection systems.
In our own country we need to look at the knock on impact of incremental cost. If the same thing can be achieved here and there is no reason why it cannot be, it really puts downward cost pressure on such techniques as MBT.
With the development of RDF/SRF end markets, a low cost approach to waste treatment of MSW should really be high technology sorting of recyclates at the front end with the residue going for either energy recovery or in the case of the organics, Anaerobic Digestion.
Local authorities constrained by cost can be provided with a solution that meets both the need for landfill diversion and demands of the public purse.
Subscribe for free