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| John
Trotti |
I
just returned from Europe where I visited a number of waste facilities,
walked the floors of Entsorga (surely the world’s largest waste management
exposition), and attended the annual International Solid Waste Association
(ISWA) conference in Paris. It was all very interesting, but I’d be
less than candid to suggest that I sensed much applicability of European
approaches and practices to North American systems…at least for the
present. Let me give you my appraisal.
Entsorga
took place in Cologne, Germany, and after several hours at a forced-march
pace, I began to believe the show floor extended to the outskirts of
Moscow. The majority of the exhibitors were headquartered in France,
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the UK. The most vivid impression
I had of the exhibits was the general level of technology, which featured
WTE and digester systems along with a fantastic array of water-quality-related
equipment. Nearly as impressive was the European sales-demonstration
approach that involved mysterious amber liquids provided in generous
amounts to prospective customers prior to the sales pitch. Maybe it
was treated leachate.
Of the sites
that I visited, an anaerobic digester in Freiberg, Germany, caught my
attention as much for its location as its activity. The facility snuggles
up to a Burger King restaurant and treats 36,000 tpy of kitchen and
yardwaste, yielding sufficient biogas (280 Nm3/ton of waste)
to produce 700 kW/ton of heat and electrical energy. The bulk of the
residual material is then matured aerobically for a period of two weeks,
achieving the German Rottgrad V designation for compost suitable for
agricultural use.
My first
thought on seeing the proximity of the facility to an eatery and other
urban activities was that the siting was suicidal, but the only odor
I could detect when I got out of my car was the meat and potatoes next
door. I began to wonder if the digester was working until the chief
engineer led me inside the containment area, where the nitrate-laden
atmosphere took my breath away and infused my clothes with a staggering
stench.
Afterward
I considered how rapidly anaerobic digestion technology had matured
over the past decade. True, economics still makes siting such a facility
in the US iffy, but the gap - especially given the performance - is
narrowing.
Being by-and-large
Eurocentric in its vision, the ISWA conference slips seamlessly into
its Paris surroundings, content to maintain a network of well-entrenched
waste management institutions through funding measures quite foreign
to those of us on this side of the Atlantic. Tax levies on less favored
practices and/or subsidies encouraging politically correct solutions
are accepted tactics throughout the emerging European Union (EU). Consider
for example: a $30/ton landfill tax in Denmark, a $0.12/kWh electrical
subsidy in Italy, and a $0.03/lb. fee for glass in Germany. As a result,
the market prices for landfilling range from $12/ton in Spain to $150/ton
in Germany.
Conventional
wisdom says that countries such as Germany, France, Sweden, and Belgium
will continue to deal with waste in their accustomed ways, but I found
myself questioning just how bulletproof these authoritarian systems
will prove to be as the EU movement progresses. How eager, I wonder,
will Dutch citizens be to subsidize the improvements required by EU
directives to Spanish or Portuguese waste systems, much less those of
Greece, Turkey, and the handful of former Eastern Bloc countries waiting
at the gates? What happens when an enterprising German finds he can
pocket a quick $120/ton by sneaking waste into Poland? Meanwhile, at
$150/ton to handle the waste, I have to believe that even I could do
a fairly respectable job, with enough left over to serve world-class
wines, cheese, and a little pâté at my newly acquired castle
overlooking the Rhine.
MSW
May / June, 2000
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