The Potential Contribution of Waste Management to a Low Carbon Economy Technical Appendices October 2015 Report commissioned by Zero Waste Europe in partnership with Zero Waste France and ACR+ Prepared by Ann Ballinger and Dominic Hogg Approved by Eunomia Research & Consulting Ltd 37 Queen Square Bristol BS1 4QS United Kingdom Dominic Hogg Tel: +44 (0)117 9172250 (Project Director) Fax: +44 (0)8717 142942 Web: www.eunomia.co.uk Acknowledgements Zero Waste Europe gratefully acknowledges financial assistance from LIFE financial instrument of the European Community. The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with Zero Waste Europe. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the fun- der mentioned above. The funder cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. Our thanks to the following reviewers for constructive comments and feedback made on pre- vious draft versions of this document: Mariel Vilella, Delphine Levi Alvares, Jeffrey Morris, Joan Marc Simon, Enzo Favoino and Neil Tangri and ACR+. Disclaimer Eunomia Research & Consulting has taken due care in the preparation of this report to ensure that all facts and analysis presented are as accurate as possible within the scope of the project. However no guarantee is provided in respect of the information presented, and Eunomia Re- search & Consulting is not responsible for decisions or actions taken on the basis of the content of this report. ©zerowastefrance Content 1. Introduction 3 1.1. General Considerations for Waste Treatment Sys- 4 tems 2. Prevention, Re-use and Dry Recycling 5 2.1 Data on Waste Prevention 7 2.2 Data on Re-use 8 2.3 Data on Dry Recycling 10 3. Treatment of Organic Waste 22 3.1 Data on Composting 23 3.235 Anaerobic Digestion 26 4. Treatment of Residual Waste 29 4.1 Residual Waste Composition 30 4.2 Landfill 30 4.3 Incineration and Gasification 37 4.4 Mechanical Biological Treatment 41 4.5 Summary of Residual Waste Treatment Impacts 42 1.Introduction [4] 1.Introduction These Appendices provide background information in support of the data in the main report. They consider the emissions from different waste prevention and management activities to climate change. The focus is on the impacts per tonne of the waste material being prevented / managed. 1.1 General Considerations for Waste Treatment Systems When considering the greenhouse gas impacts of waste treatment systems – for either organic or residual waste - the following issues need to be considered: • Direct emissions from the treatment process itself; • Emissions associated with energy used within the treatment process; and • The emissions which are avoided as a result of materials use (avoiding primary materials use), energy generation, and/or the benefits associated with the use of outputs, such as compost, that result from the treatment process. The Appendices on source segregated organic waste and residual waste treatment systems therefore discuss the greenhouse gas emissions impacts on this basis. Carbon Impacts of Waste Management - Technical Appendices 2.Prevention, Re-use and Dry Recycling [6] 2.Prevention, Re-use and Dry Recycling In considering the climate change impacts of waste the use of recycled content results in a reduction in prevention initiatives, a distinction is made between: production emissions, so the proportion of recycled content used in the production process is also im- • Activities that reduce the amount of mate- portant. This varies across different countries, with rial consumed without increasing the consumption Europe being more advanced than elsewhere given of another type of material, such as light-weighting the recycling targets contained within the Directives. of single use packaging, or avoiding the wastage of As the proportion of recycled content increases, so food through judicious purchasing decisions. Bene- the benefits of the source reduction initiatives may fits of these activities can be considered through be expected to be reduced. data on the impacts of producing the materials that c. Electricity consumption is more carbon-in- are the target of the activity. tensive than heat production per kWh of energy, so the type of energy consumed in the production pro- • Initiatives where the reduction in the cess is also important, as is the carbon intensity of consumption of one type of material results in the the source of heat or electricity. increased consumption of another type of material. d. Since different countries use different Here, emissions reductions may still be seen, but are sources of fuel for energy generation, the country often more difficult to quantify. Examples include where manufacture takes place may also be im- swapping from single use plastic carrier bags to long portant, especially where, for example, electricity life plastic bags, bags made from textiles, or single is concerned. In many countries, policies aimed at use paper bags. decarbonising energy supplies will reduce the im- pacts from many production processes over time. The benefits of waste prevention relate in part to the Decarbonisation plans are relatively more advanced type(s) of material(s) whose consumption is being for electricity production, and so in the short to me- avoided. Also, for reasons explained below, if the dium term, the impact is anticipated to be greatest material whose consumption is avoided is derived on those production processes that are more reliant mainly from recycled sources, the benefits of avoi- upon electricity consumption. ding consumption might be lower than in the case where the material is derived mainly from primary 2) Reuse sources. For reuse, similar factors to those considered above Key factors determining the impacts of these mea- for waste prevention are relevant. However, there sures are considered below: are additional factors which are of relevance, with the key issue being how the emissions associated 1) Prevention with the cycle(s) of reuse compare with this situa- Key factors are: tion which would have prevailed without the reuse a. The materials inputs used in producing the activity. goods, or packaging, which is being prevented; a. Where the nature of the reused product is b. The amount of energy used in the process different to that of the single trip product it replaces used to produce the related materials, and the type (for example, glass bottles designed for several reuse of energy used in the process. Production is more en- cycles may be heavier than single trip bottles as they ergy-intensive for some materials than others, and are designed to be handled and reused many times), so the impacts of production vary by material. For then the relative energy intensity of the production reasons explained in the context of recycling below, of the reused product and the displaced single trip the mix of primary and secondary materials used in product are important. It also becomes important to the production process will influence the amount know how many times the reusable product can be of energy that is required in production. Typically reused before it either breaks, or loses its functio- Carbon Impacts of Waste Management - Technical Appendices [7] 2.Prevention, Re-use and Dry Recycling nality for another reason (other things being equal, 2.1 Waste Prevention the more times the reused product can be utilised, in general, the better); Waste prevention impacts for the situation where b.For some reused goods, the good consumes no material substitution occurs can be conside- energy as it is used. It then becomes important to red through the avoided manufacturing impacts. understand the relative energy use of the reused Sources of information in this respect include the product relative to what would otherwise have hap- Scottish Carbon Metric, which reviewed the data on pened in the absence of reuse. For example, in the production in Europe and China, as well as the life absence of reuse options, would consumers pur- cycle databases such as Ecoinvent. Selected data is chase new, more efficient products, or would they presented in Table 2 -1. We used the data from the not have purchased them at all? Scottish Carbon Metric (SCM) in our analysis as this c. There may also be energy used in the pro- is both more recent and more consistent with the cess by which goods or packaging are prepared for recycling data presented in Section 2.2 – noting that reuse (for example, in washing of reusable nappies). in some cases (such as for steel) the source of the information in the SCM is, in fact, the Ecoinvent da- 3) Recycling tabase. Where recycling impacts are concerned, the main impacts relate to the greenhouse gas impacts of: The data in the above table on production emissions a. The change in emissions associated with are applicable to prevention initiatives, such as a re- the changes in collection and sorting systems (inclu- duction in the amount of packaging material used, ding bulking and haulage), though these tend to be or initiatives aimed at tackling food waste. Waste relatively small; prevention activities are clearly much wider in scope b. The rate at which the materials collected than this. However, as was indicated above, emis- for recycling substitute for primary materials (so, for sions savings resulting from some of these other ini- example, the benefit will be greater the closer the tiatives are rather more difficult to quantify where rate of substitution is to 100%); one activity is being replaced by another. Table 2 -2 c. The change in the amount, and source, provides data on this type of action, which covers of energy used when materials are produced using such initiatives as the use of real nappies (displacing secondary materials instead of primary ones. There the use of disposables). are large reductions in GHG emissions in the case of the recycling of metals, a significant reduction in the case of recycling of plastics, and a smaller reduction in the case of recycling of glass, or wood; d.