Bridging the gap

The gap between the outputs from waste treatment and the marketable products required for utilisation in different industries is one of the major barriers to successful use of waste-derived products. These discrepancies influence the utilisation of secondary products but they can be bridged to determine end-user markets and enable the efficient reuse of valuable materials in an Integrated Resource Recovery System.

In the UK, as in many other European countries, recycling activities for numerous waste streams are being driven by major regulatory initiatives. In the public sector, individual local authorities have a mandate to divert municipal solid waste from landfill to meet the statutory recycling targets set by the Best Value Performance Indicator scheme, as well as the Landfill Allowances Trading Scheme.
In the commercial and industrial sector the developing suite of producer responsibility legislation for packaging, end-of-life vehicles, waste electrical and electronic equipment etc, is leading to increased levels of recovery and recycling to meet voluntary and statutory industry obligations for post-consumer products.

Most of the current legislative drivers and the subsequent activities in the different sectors are focused on the actual waste collection, recycling and recovery of waste to avoid landfill disposal as an undesirable environmental option. These regulatory drivers have led to the development of a collection, recovery and recycling infrastructure, which is currently being implemented throughout the UK.

Closing the material loop

In contrast to landfill disposal, the recycling and recovery processes being introduced are not end-of-pipe solutions, but should be part of an IRRS. All these processes attempt to recover value from waste by producing a range of output streams that could enter new markets and replace primary resources to close the materials loop and increase resource efficiency. However, there is a significant market imbalance in the amount of outputs derived from waste compared to demand for such products.

The table below provides an overview of selected outputs from some waste recovery processes and how these could be converted into marketable products. The
characteristic of a marketable secondary product can be described as follows:

Not all outputs will create marketable products, because every recycling and recovery activity produces rejects and residues for disposal. The amount going to disposal can be substantial and varies from 5-50% of the input, including process residues and rejects from the input waste stream.

Subsequent recycling activities will produce additional rejects as the total amount accepted for recycling can often not be reused within the original production process. This shows that in reality 100% resource recovery and “zero waste” are not realistic goals, but it also suggests that currently resource recovery is not efficient and needs to be improved in the future to ensure markets for secondary products can be created in order to recover value from waste.

Waste derived outputs to marketable products

*Not all suitable waste streams are listed for each waste process

Source: RPS Planning, Transport & Environment

In order to bridge the gap to market, most outputs require various levels of conditioning/post-treatment and even additional waste treatment to convert the output into a marketable secondary material and/or product. In many cases, conditioning is already part of the overall waste treatment process.

Examples include the maturation and screening of compost or the electricity/heat production after thermal waste treatment. Some hybrid processes such as MBT/BMT have been developed to further integrate waste treatment and the production of secondary material.

Integrated waste management

Today, integrated waste management is becoming standard practice to recover value from waste instead of landfill disposal. However, IWM focuses on the optimised integration of waste treatment activities in regard to waste flows, proximity and landfill diversion. In contrast Integrated Resource Recovery Systems are aimed at producing marketable products through waste treatment to close the materials loop and increase resource efficiency.

Sometimes, these are described as eco-parks or resource recovery parks (see page 35), which refers to the optimised integration of producers and users of waste-derived products at close proximity. The concept of IRRS is not restricted to eco-parks, but promotes the idea of optimised utilisation of waste as a valuable resource within the public and private sector as a sustainable approach for the future.

So, how can this be achieved in the future and how can waste management producing valuable outputs evolve into resource management creating marketable products? In an economic environment the markets for waste-derived products are driven by demand and supply indicated through the associated price mechanism.

Regulatory forces are distorting the market to protect public health, society and the environment. Due to the costs of waste treatment and preparation, most waste-derived resources are currently more costly than their virgin equivalents. In consequence, most markets for secondary products will be distorted to avoid the currently cheapest, but undesirable option of landfill disposal.

Secondary product markets and regulatory distortion in the UK

Note: This table only provides an overview of selected outputs. It does not address the efficiency of these markets.

Source: RPS Planning, Transport & Environment

Addressing waste treatment

Most regulatory drivers and incentive systems are still focused on waste treatment, ie the supply of waste-derived materials, without addressing the utilisation of outputs and marketable products to the same degree. The renewable electricity sector is one of the few areas where the utilisation of waste-derived products is being stipulated.

However, not all types of waste-to-energy products are included under the Renewables Obligation, which leads to market distortion towards certain waste treatment technologies and input streams. The government’s Green Procurement Initiative attempts to promote the purchase of recycled products within the public sector as part of the Sustainability Programme, which could be a very promising concept to encourage the utilisation of secondary products and green resources.
Today, most markets for secondary products are reliant on softer measures such as quality standards and material acceptance criteria to establish confidence in waste-derived products and subsequently stimulate demand. The rising amount of waste-derived products going to landfill or being processed as waste for a gate fee shows that this approach might not be sufficient to address the market imbalance that currently exists.

Sustainable markets for waste-derived products need to be sustained and created in the short to medium-term future. Therefore more wide ranging measures need to be considered to encourage efficient use of resources. The concept of an IRRS addresses these growing concerns about finite future resources.

IRRS attempts to find an economic and environmental balance between the utilisation of virgin and secondary resources by all sectors of society and considers waste treatment from a different perspective. IRRS concentrates on the creation of valuable products with sustainable markets instead of solely focusing on waste management in isolation.

This will have implications for the selection of suitable waste treatment processes, as it will lead to a prioritisation of waste technologies that can produce valuable and marketable products. It will also influence the way waste contracts are structured, the siting and planning of new facilities as well as the way new waste treatment infrastructure will be funded.

It will require the co-operation and strength of all waste industry players and regulators to move from an integrated waste management for different waste streams to an IRRS, which concentrates on recovering value from waste and efficient resources utilisation.