Benchmarking different treatment methods for organic municipal solid waste

Abstract

In the EU around 40% of bio-waste (organic fractions of municipal solid waste including food waste) still goes to landfills. In some Member States this waste is almost completely landfilled. An estimation is that about one- third of Europe`s 2020 targets for renewable energy in transport could be met by using biogas produced from bio-waste (including food waste), and around 2% of the EU`s overall renewable energy target could be met if all bio-waste were turned into energy.Modern and environmentally friendly waste management is still not introduced in many European cities and regions. This problem is tackled by the Bin2Grid project which promotes the “food waste to biomethane” concept in four large European cities in order to serve as flagship examples for other cities.The objective of the Bin2Grid project is to support biomethane production and its use in transport by using segregated food waste from the food and beverage industry, catering sector, and from households(MSW) as feedstock. Focus of the Bin2Grid project is on the development of value chain concepts for four European cities: Zagreb (Croatia), Skopje (Macedonia), Malaga (Spain), and Paris (France). The Bin2Grid project highlights the multiple environmental benefits of source-separate waste collection and conversion of that feedstock into biomethane, in comparison to other treatment methods (landfilling, incineration, MBT, composting). A Benchmark Tool was developed by the project and is presented in this paper.