Land Filling – Worst Choice for the Environment

Land filling – Worst Choice for the Environment

"Disposing of waste in landfills is not a solution. It is the most unsustainable way of waste treatment..." (German Green Party- 2007)

Today the number one competition to Energy from Waste (EfW) is land filling. EfW and land filling compete in different areas and on different levels. One can differentiate between region, governmental regulations, political and public perception, and economic perception all on a local, state and/or nationwide level.

Today’s landfill practices incorporate state of the art landfill technology – however, when compared to GCS’s Advanced Thermal Recycling (ATR) technology it is completely outdated.

Environmental activists dislike landfills not only because of the potential for pollution, but because they permanently remove various raw materials from economic use. All of the energy and natural resources that went into the manufacturing process of a disposed of item are "wasted" and not conserved. This is said to contribute to damage of forests, and agricultural areas, including in less-developed countries that derive a majority of their export revenues from raw material.

Methane is 21x more potent than CO2

One million tons of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) treated in a modern EfW/WTE facility and not land filled will release 500,000 tons less CO2 into the atmosphere.

"Disposing of waste in landfills is not a solution. It is the most unsustainable way of waste treatment..."

German Green Party on waste disposal May 25th 2007 – read statement here: “Waste Disposal Position of Alliance90-The Greens.”

How waste treatment relates to emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and why Germany enacted a law that banns untreated waste in landfills.

Read the statement by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety here: “Letter von Dr. C Bergs vom BMU on GHGs.”

Comparison: Land filling, Waste-to-Energy and Mechanical Biological Treatment:
How do they compare at Best Available Practices?

Of special interest:
Slide 28 – Ecological Fingerprint &
Slide 38 – Greenhouse Effect

Read the Entire BASF study here: “Eco - efficiency analysis - BASF.”

The release of Methane and Carbon Dioxide from EfW/WTE:

Land Filling, Worst Choice for the Environment

Even with a very sophisticated recycling system not all household waste can be recycled thus requiring curb side pick up of the remaining trash and delivery to the EfW facility. This releases CO2. However, the idea is to have EfW facilities within close proximity of where the waste is produced to keep the CO2 emissions as low as possible.
CO2 is released from EfW facilities. However, because over 50% is of biogenic origin, EfW facilities get credited with a reduction of CO2 for energy production by offsetting energy requirements from non-renewable sources (oil/gas/coal…).
Some EfW facilities are able to turn over 98% of input waste into reusable end products. This process is referred to Advanced Thermal Recycling (ATR).Conventional EfW facilities recover ferrous metals thus reducing the need for new raw materials. This has a positive impact on the environment. The ATR process recovers no only ferrous metals but non-ferrous, Hydrochloric Acid of pharmaceutical grade, Gypsum for the wallboard industry and bottom ash for use as a construction material. By recovering all these products there is no necessity to spend the energy, and in turn CO2, to bring in new gravel, gypsum, iron, steal, nickel, copper etc.

Vs: The releases of Methane and Carbon Dioxide from Landfills:

Landfill vs ATR

Waste is collected at the curbside (from your home) – The Pick-up trucks emit CO2.
As more and more landfills are reaching capacity the distance to landfills is ever increasing – Long Haul by truck or train emits more CO2.
As landfills at best, from a scientific point of view, can not recover more than 50% of the methane, significant amounts of methane are released into the atmosphere (21 times worse than CO2). Some landfills don’t recover methane at all!
For the landfills with a collection system either by just flaring the methane (no energy production) or with a very expensive recovery system that enables a collection of methane of no more than 50%, CO2 is still released.
And as the amounts of methane recovery are limited as well as that many energy containing substances are simply lost in a landfill vs. recovered by EfW further CO2 is emitted by burning fossil fuels to make up for the lost energy content.

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