engleski

The Interdependence of Material and Energy Recovery of Municipal Solid Waste

During the last decades, the impact of human progress on earth ecosystem has become one of the most important questions. One of the problems that are identified in that field is the problem of abiotic depletion. This problem is pronounced in Europe which does not have enough mineral and earth resources to supply its rapid economic development. Insufficient local production leads to dependence on importing of raw materials and energy carriers. To alleviate these problems, by keeping the value of resources, materials and products, circulating within the European Union's economy for as long as possible, European Union developed the Circular Economy concept. To maintain resources in the economy for as long as possible, resource drains have to be minimised and waste generation is one of the biggest. Circular Economy defines “closing the loop” agenda which is already widely recognised in the scope of material recovery of waste through closed/open loop recycling, but role of energy recovery of waste has not been specifically analysed as a way to use residual waste, by-products, degraded waste materials and/or bio-waste for energy production. Minimisation of waste production, which is the first step in waste management hierarchy lead to avoiding of wasting of valuable resources, but also reduced the quantities of waste materials available for use in material and energy recovery chains. Also, emphasis on material recovery leads to a reduction of possible production of energy from waste. On another hand, produced energy carriers can be used for meeting the needs of material production/recycling chain through interconnecting waste and energy systems which could increase the sustainability of whole integrated waste management system (waste collection, management and recovery chain). In this paper, benefits from the use of energy from waste in the “closing the loop” concept are evaluated. This is done by assessing to what degree energy generated from waste can cover integrated waste management system energy needs and analyse the influence of this system integration on increasing the sustainability of secondary material production. Waste management and waste recovery chains are modelled through material flow tracking and energy carrier flow tracking, energy consumption coverage through and primary energy flow tracking while the influence on recycled material sustainability is analysed through tracking of changes in Embodied Energy of produced materials.

Energy recovery of waste ; material recovery of waste ; municipal solid waste ; sustainability incensement ; closing the loop

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