Lots of Resources

How can our built environment become healthier, more climate-friendly, and more resource-efficient?

As discussed inside Global WtERT Council we are now in the process of taking the small step towards the new website wasteculture.com. I am convinced that this also will help the common cause to foster WtE techniques who need more acceptance in society.

At the end of July, the EU Commission published its delegated act to concretise the taxonomy regulation which was approved in principle at the middle of the same month.

Hindware has partnered with Delhi Street Art – DSA Foundation to create stunning murals using waste tiles.

Construction waste generated during the construction, renovation and demolition process occupies huge landfills due to significant volumes.

In its current phase (04/2014 - 12/2016), the Sustainable Municipal Services (SMS) program of the German Development Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit – GIZ) in Kosovo has the potential to provide in the medium term basic public services in the waste management sector for 70% of the population. Such an achievement would be to a large extent dependent on the success and development of an incentive-based competition in 17 selected municipalities (out of a total of 38 ), which was set up by the MESP in cooperation with the German Development Bank (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau – KfW). Responsible municipal bodies get access to investments provided that they implement reforms for performance development and make improvements in selected performance indicators. The latter aims at a financially sustainable expansion of services.

Cities and buildings are urban mines for raw materials and bind large quantities of valuable resources for various periods of time. In addition to the common recycling activities, primarily for mineral construction residues, a market for well-preserved 2nd hand structural components and materials is emerging.

In order to treat household waste Romerike Avfallsforedling (ROAF) located in Skedsmorkorset north of Oslo, Norway required the installation of a mechanical Treatment facility to process 40,000 tpa. Together with a Norwegian based technical consultancy Mepex and German based technical consultancy EUG the project was tendered and the plant build against a technical specification. In 2013 the project was awarded to Stadler Anlagenbau and since April 2014 the plant is in operation with an hourly throughput of thirty tons. The input waste contains specific green coloured bags containing food waste which is collected together with the residual waste from the households. The process recovers successfully the green food bags before the remaining waste is mechanically pre-treated and screened to isolate a polymer rich fraction which is then fully segregated via NIR technology in to target polymers prior to fully automated product baling. Recoverable Fibre is optically targeted as well as ferrous and non-ferrous metals. All food waste is transported off site for further biological treatment and the remaining residual waste leaves site for thermal recovery. In 2015 the plant has been successfully upgraded to forty tons per hour and remains fully automated including material baling.

The waste disposal system in Poland is one of the least advanced in Europe. Despite great efforts over the last 20 years municipal waste landfilling has only reduced from 95 percent in 1991 to 73 percent in 2010. This still means that millions of tonnes of post-consumer waste continue to be landfilled.

State-of-the-art Waste-to-Energy plants are reducing the volume of municipal and commercial waste as well as generating electric power and district heating. This survey concentrates on bottom ash treatment and utilization from a wet discharge process all Bavarian Waste-to-Energy – WtE – plants have in common.

The European road network has a total length of more than 5.8 million km (ERF 2007) and it is still growing. Obviously, various pavement layers exhibit different lifetimes which makes regular maintenance work necessary. As a result, several hundred million tons of road materials are excavated each year from a number of demolished pavement layers. According to European policy (EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, 2006), these materials can be seen as wastes, viz. “substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard”. Nevertheless, in nearly all countries, part of these road construction wastes is reused or recycled back into road infrastructure and this part may reach 100 % depending on the type of road waste.

Wheeled loaders are still indispensable working machines in many companies – also in construction material recycling plants. They are used because of the long operating hours they are capable of. In addition to the final loading, in many cases intermediate stockpiles are created, although these can result in considerable costs and risks.

The final disposal ratio of mixed construction and demolition waste (MCDW) remains high in Japan, while progress has been made in the recycling of other construction and demolition waste. Sorting facilities are expected to play an important role in better management of MCDW. In this study, the feasibility of sorting facilities for the separation of material and of pre-treatment for final disposal was investigated by conducting a batch experiment at an operational facility.

The absence of a certified network for the collection and processing of the materials contained in generated Renovation and Demolition (R&D) waste is a main shortcoming of R&D waste management in Greece. Until recently, less than 5% of all R&D waste generated in Greece was reused or recycled, while the rest was landfilled or disposed in uncontrolled, open dumps. In order to increase the community’s awareness in environmental issues a research team has been formed and qualified for the funding of the project “Information System for Demolition Waste Management” (DEWAM project).

The research work to be presented in this paper aims at the comparison of different environmental tools for improving environmental, social and economic indicators towards sustainability in the building construction sector. Moreover, this work reviews in detail the LCA concept and the tools applied in the building environment, as an effort to bring together research on life cycle assessment and practical application.

Techniques for mechanical-biological treatment of solid fraction of household waste taking their seats in the waste management business of many countries. MBT facilities working as a complement or as a low cost option for incineration facilities. Further on there is still a large demand for many MBT facilities to improve the aerobic biological treatment process, to reduce operation costs and to increase reliability. With the help of some examples the possibilities to improve existing facilities will be shown and technical solutions for planning and construction of new facilities will be discussed. Keywords: MBT, aerobic treatment, composting, maturation, optimization, operating cost 1 Introduction 1.1 MBT – Current status and perspectives 1.2 Optimising potential 2 Optimising potential in aerobic treatment 2.1 The biodegradation process – Everything under control 2.2 The input material – flexibility counts 2.3 The financials – Efficient application of technology 2.4 Practical experience - Examples 2.4.1 MBT Cröbern 2.4.2 MBT Rosenow 2.4.3 MBT Schwanebeck 2.4.4 Dynamic tunnel composting – a pilot scheme 3 Summary

The effect of tree species on the nutrient concentrations of composts is assessed in this study. In the first part of the study, micronutrient levels were assessed in bark and wood of several poplar and willow clones in a 3-year old plantation.

Only eleven (0.2%) of the 5,507 Brazilian municipalities have C&D waste recycling centres. Thirteen centres (seven in operation, one restarting its operation and five have shut down) are stationary plants and recycle part of the C&D waste produced in local communities. It can, therefore, be concluded that a large part of this waste is not recycled in Brazil. Nonetheless, this situation is changing. Since the publication of CONAMA (Brazilian Environmental Protection Agency) Resolution no. 307 in 2002, all Brazilian local governments are obliged to prepare and adopt strategies for sustainable management of C&D waste (MMA, 2002). In the justifications for this resolution, mention was made of the feasibility of the production and use of C&D waste materials. However, there has been relatively little research in Brazil to prove the technical and economic viability of C&D waste recycling centres.

Improving Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management services in developing regions of the world is one the major challenges of sustainable urban development. As part of its commitment to help these regions in this effort, the World Bank commissioned a study in 2006 to review and rationalize the current state of municipal solid waste management in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) regions, and to recommend actions leading to improvements and greater private sector participation/investment.

In recent years, Brazilian civil construction and the real estate construction sub-sector, particularly, have faced challenges to find top-level quality and productivity within a process of upgrade and change in traditional practices. However, numerous shortages can be found at every stage of the building production process. Included in these shortages is the management of a large quantity of waste products, causing serious urban problems arising from the scarcity of disposal areas, from public sanitation problems and environmental contamination.

The possibilities to use slightly contaminated soil and demolition waste in a recycling process is dealt in the so called LAGA memorandum 20 (LAGA; 2003). These instructions were worked out by a federal states working committee dealing with waste. It has not been introduced in all federal states, though. Due to this, it is not obligatorily binding for administrative decisions dealing with the permission of construction projects. To obtain a standardised procedure - at least for the earth construction part of roads - it was decided that the body of rules about technology in road construction should concentrate more intensively on the topic of the usage of contaminated soil and demolition waste as recycling materials.