ENERGY FOOTPRINT ANALYSIS: WASTE MANAGEMENT OPTIONS FOR THE PROCESSING OF THE PAPER AND CARD FRACTION OF HOUSEHOLD

WASTE Executive Summary Introduction The EU Landfill Directive and national strategy documents have set ambitious targets and deadlines for diversion and recycling: more broadly, prudent use of energy and raw materials is fundamental to sustainable development and will require a step-change in resource productivity. Progress in waste management is hampered, however, by the lack of methods to identify and promote sustainable practices. There is thus a need to develop tools for rational evaluation and comparison of alternatives for the collection, separation and processing of waste fractions. Here, a project set up under the UKs Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, with funding from Biffaward, is described. The objectives of the project are: to understand, quantify and model energy usage associated with the collection, separation, processing and disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW). to produce an energy and materials balance that can be used for evaluation and comparison of different alternatives and combinations of options for MSW management. The resulting model shows the energy footprint of current waste management practices, both individually and in combination, and allows exploration of alternative choices and combination of options. The work is based on the city of Southampton (UK), but the methods and findings can be applied to other areas by modifying the input data. The energy footprint analysis is illustrated here using a case study of the paper/card component within domestic MSW. The model looks at the present management system in the city of Southampton, concentrating on those areas associated with the paper/card waste stream, and determines the mass and energy balances for the different processes/stages involved in this. It is compiled in Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic, and allows for various scenarios to be run. Thus, comparison can be made with the present-day situation, highlighting possible options for improvement of the management system for paper/card. Results and Discussion The model for paper/card starts from the point where the material becomes waste and follows it through until disposal and/or reprocessing. It consists of individual, but inter-linked, submodels: 1. Stage 1 Transport (Household to Paper/Card Banks) 2. Stage 2 Transport (Paper/Card Banks to Waste Transfer Station /Waste Merchant) 3. Kerbside Collection (PaperChain and Dry Recyclables Schemes) 4. Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) 5. Stage 3 Transport (WTS, Waste Merchant, MRF to Paper Mill) 6. Paper/Cardboard Manufacture 7. Refuse Collection and Landfill 8. Incineration Critically, the model not only takes into account the energy consumed during processing/disposal but also transport energy consumption. Until recently paper/card was only recycled in Southampton using a combination of recycling banks and the PaperChain scheme (which only collects newspapers, magazines and leaflets). The annual energy consumption associated with the different stages of paper/card recycling and waste management for the base-case situation (18.1% overall paper/card recycling rate)

with this scenario is determined using the energy footprint model. The banks tonnage are then kept fixed at the base-case level (1072 tonnes, 2000-2002 average), and the recycling rate varied by changing the amount of material collected from the PaperChain scheme (base-case level of 3194 tonnes). The results show that the savings made through increased use of recycled paper/card in manufacturing offsets any increases in transport and processing energy consumption elsewhere. Indeed, increasing the overall recycling rate from 18.1% to 51.5% (the maximum possible with the PaperChain scheme) results in an ~5% energy saving. Alternatively, a dry recyclables (paper/card, plastics, metal cans) kerbside collection scheme could be introduced as a replacement to the PaperChain scheme. Comparison of the total annual energy consumption associated with the two different kerbside schemes (both with a fixed tonnage from the recycling banks of 1072 tonnes the base-case level) shows that recycling via the dry recyclables scheme consumes the most energy, partly due to the MRF processing energy and partly due to the greater transportation distances involved with this recycling option. However, although the energy consumption is higher for a given recycling rate, it would be expected that the dry recyclables scheme would have a higher recycling rate than the other collection methods: firstly, the rate via banks is traditionally lower; secondly, since the PaperChain scheme only collects newspapers, magazines and leaflets, the maximum overall rate here is limited to ~50%. Hence, the dry recyclables scheme would be able to achieve a higher possible reduction in energy consumption. The model also includes the option to incinerate, rather than landfill, the residual waste stream. The effect that incineration has on the total energy consumption has been examined by comparing the recycling scenario using the base-case banks tonnage plus variable amounts of paper/card collected via the dry recyclables scheme (scenario 1) with the following scenarios: 2) no recycling of the paper/card, plus incineration of the residual waste stream 3) recycling is kept at the base-case level, plus incineration 4) maximum recycling via the dry recyclables scheme, plus incineration Firstly, the results show that, compared to recycling alone, incineration without recycling gives a much higher maximum reduction in energy consumption (44.6% over the base-case scenario, compared to only 8.75%). Secondly, at low-medium levels of incineration, scenarios 3 and 4 give a lower energy consumption than just incineration (scenario 2). Hence, here, a combination of recycling plus incineration of the residual waste would be the best waste management option, especially since removing paper/card from the waste stream does not significantly change the calorific value of the residual waste. For instance, with maximum recycling via the dry recyclables scheme there is no noticeable change in the CV of the waste compared to the base-case value. Conclusions The major source of energy savings from paper/card recycling is through increased use of recycled material in paper/card manufacture (~5 - 9% reduction in total energy consumption with maximum overall paper/card recycling rate when compared to the base-case scenario, depending on the method of collection of material for recycling). The dry recyclables kerbside collection scheme would be the preferred collection method of paper/card recycling, since it has the potential to recycle the most paper/card, leading to the greatest reduction (8.75%) in energy consumption compared to the base-case scenario. In terms of energy consumption, recycling of paper/card, with incineration of the residual waste stream, would generally be the preferred waste management option, unless the levels of incineration are high.