Energy Recovery Potential of Municipal Solid Waste Generated in Georgia

The Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) from the household, commercial or industrial represent materials with significant energy value. The directives of European Union (EU) discourage landfilling of waste and promotes their recycling and recovery. Until the present, in Romania there are no plants in operation for the municipal waste incineration. The municipal waste disposal is carried out solely through landfills. The paper presents energy recovery potential of municipal solid waste and the possible contribution to the demand for heat of the city Suceava.

Waste management approaches such as prevention, reuse, recycling, and recovery are key objectives, which stand in a Waste hierarchy of priority. The same Waste Hierarchy is a basic principle of the waste management policy of Georgia. Waste recovery is a priority approach over landfilling. In this case, it should be noted that more than 90 % of waste generated in Georgia is landfilled, which has negative social, economic, and environmental impacts. Thus, along with reusing and recycling, Waste-to-Energy (WtE) should be a solution for sustainable WM systems. Municipal waste generation in Georgia is characterized by increasing dynamics. For example, in 2015–2023, waste generation per capita increased from 207.8 kg to 302.2 kg. Accordingly, the amount of municipal waste disposed of in landfills has significantly increased. According to data from the National Statistics Office of Georgia, in 2015, 774.4 thousand tons were placed in landfills, and in 2023 – 1116.6 thousand tons, which is more than 90 % of the municipal waste generated annually. On the other hand, the calorific value of municipal waste generated in Georgia is of interest in terms of energy recovery, taking into account the experience of many developed countries, in particular Sweden and Denmark. As is known, for the effective use of municipal waste for energy recovery, it is necessary that the average lower calorific value of waste should be at least 7 MJ/kg and must never fall below 6 MJ/kg. Plastic waste is characterized by the highest calorific value, paper and textiles are also acceptable for energy recovery. Organic waste has a rather low calorific value (4 MJ/kg), which is not recommended for Waste-to-Energy technologies. Plastics such as Polypropylene PP, Polyethylene HDPE, and Polyethylene Terephthalate PET have a high calorific value. In this regard, it should be noted that municipal waste generated in Georgia consists of about 13–14 % plastic, 10–11 % of paper and cardboard, and more than 4 % of textiles. Organic waste constitutes the largest portion of municipal waste generated in Georgia (over 54 %), however, this type of waste is not of interest in terms of energy recovery, as the calorific value of organic waste is very low (4 MJ/kg).

Jos Metropolis is facing significant challenges related to waste management and energy sustainability. The rapid urbanization and population growth in Jos have led to increased waste generation, highlighting the critical need for effective waste management practices. The aim of this research work is to estimate the potential amount of electricity that can be generated from the municipal solid waste in Jos Metropolis. Samples were collected from the two dumpsites, following ASTM5231 (Standard test method for determination of the composition of unprocessed municipal solid waste) method used for the collection of the waste sample and characterization. The methods involve random collection of waste samples from disposal vehicle at the dumpsite in two batches of 25kg from each dumpsite making a total of 100kg. During the characterization, the samples collected were mixed into a single pool on a tarpaulin and sorted into different categories of plastics 23%, paper 11%, yard waste12%, food waste16%, metals 0.2%, glass1.7%, textiles 3%, combustible materials 6% non-combustible materials 3% inert materials 20% (sand, stone, and construction and demolition wastes). Also data regarding waste management and annual record of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated yearly were obtained from Plateau State Environmental Protection Sanitation Agency (PEPSA).The annual disposal rate of 42777tonnes with calorific value of 2,145.6kcal/kg was obtained meeting the minimum energy requirement for recovery via thermochemical method. Traditional model based on proximate analysis was used to determine the calorific value of the municipal solid waste generated in Jos. Economic analysis was also carried out to indicate which waste-to-energy technology is more viable in Jos. The experiments were carried out according to the ATM standard in the Chemistry laboratory of the Nigerian Army University Biu. The results of the estimated energy recovery potential was 23,483,808kWh annually, while LFG recovery could produce 1,502,305kWh per year. Economic analysis indicated incineration as the more viable waste-to-energy (WTE) technology, with a net present value (NPV) of N 1,070,167.51 a payback period of one year and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of N 0.0797/kWh. Recommendations include adopting public-private partnership, exploring additional WTE technologies, and studying the impact of weather variations on MSW calorific value to optimize energy recovery.

The main objective of this study was out to characterize and determine the energy potential of municipal solid waste (MSW) in Ibadan, South-West Nigeria. A total of 226 households and four major dumpsites from four different local government areas were sampled. Results obtained showed that waste generation rate in Ibadan metropolis was 0.63 kg/capita/day. From sampled households, through sorting and physical characteristics, MSWs were composed of food waste (53.53%), paper (23.22%), plastics (8.94%), wood (4.35%), rubber (2.22%), polythene (1.66%) and textile (1.66%). The calorific value was determined to calculate its energy content and potentials. Calorific value of 12.6 MJ/Kg was obtained using the modified Dulong equation which is greater than the benchmark for assessing electricity potential from MSW. An estimated 1,124.7 tons/day of MSW generated in 2013 translates to an energy potential of 3.6 GWh and 45.5 MW of electrical power potential capable of supplying 122.9*106 households outside of the national grid. With appropriate technology, MSW has great energy potentials.

HighlightsAn integrated GIS-based tool was developed for optimally locating bioenergy facilities.Waste and lignocellulosic biomass potential and distribution were assessed for Alberta.A case study for Alberta’s Industrial Heartland identified facility locations for two scenarios.Ten optimal locations were identified across Alberta for bioconversion of waste and biomass feeds.Abstract. Quantifying the availability of feedstock and determining an optimal location are key to ensuring the sustainability of a waste to value-added (W2VA) facility. This study aims to identify lignocellulosic biomass (agricultural and forest residues) and municipal solid waste (MSW) potential, find geographical point-source locations for the distributed biomass, and identify optimal locations for W2VA facilities across the province of Alberta, Canada, using an integrated geographic information system (GIS) based approach. MSW potential is estimated using population and average annual waste generation per capita, while agriculture and forest residue are estimated using production data and harvesting residue factor. A GIS-based framework is developed to locate biomass collection points by latitude and longitude for distributed biomass and to estimate their associated biomass potential. An integrated framework is subsequently developed to optimally locate W2VA facilities that have minimal environmental, economic, and social impacts. An array of geographical constraints is then considered in a suitability analysis and network analysis framework. An estimate of the annual availability of feedstock using the most recent data shows MSW, agricultural residue, and forest residue potentials of 4,330,000 wet megagrams (Mg), 4,060,000 dry Mg, and 2,070,000 dry Mg, respectively, in Alberta. Optimal W2VA facility locations are identified for Alberta’s Industrial Heartland (AIH) considering waste heat from the areas as an additional energy source. Ten other locations where facilities can be operated sustainably are identified across the province. This study can be used as a framework by municipalities and communities in any jurisdiction in the world to geographically locate biomass source and collection points, along with their annual capacity, and the corresponding optimal site for a W2VA facility. Keywords: Biomass, Biorefinery, GIS, suitability analysis, Integrated methodology, Municipal solid waste, Sustainability, Waste management, Waste-to-energy.

The scope of this study is to make a summary presentation of the as­pects concerning the Romanian regulation on the recovery of municipal and similar waste in energy recovery incineration plants. The authors underline that, just like the European legislation, Romanian national legislation supports and encourages recovery operations, so that the waste is used as much as pos­sible, including for obtaining electricity and/or thermal energy, and the quanti­ty of municipal waste disposed in waste storage facilities is reduced as much as possible. One of the targets required by the Romanian National Waste Manage­ment Plan, was that the quantity of stored municipal waste to be reduced to a maximum of 10%, until 2030, Romania being granted the opportunity to bene­fit from an additional five-year term, provided that all measures required in or­der to reduce the quantity of stored municipal waste to 20% of the total quan­tity of generated waste are implemented until 2030. NWMP also provides that one of the priorities of Romania in what concerns waste management and pre­vention is encouraging the production of energy from waste that cannot be re­cycled, by providing at the same time that the incineration of municipal waste with energy recovery is a very used and well-known technology.

The European Directives, along with the general notion that wastes are resources, and the effort to reduce the environmental impact in urban environment from waste management, are the driving forces behind waste to energy philosophy. The most sustainable cities in the EU consider that their sustainability is also based on energy recovery from wastes. They all use Waste-to-Energy facilities to treat a significant segment of their waste in order to produce energy in the form of heat and electricity. They do so in a very successful and environmentally friendly way, as they mainly utilise waste fractions that cannot be recycled or reused, and they do not dispose of these resources in landfills. This approach proves that sustainable waste management cannot be achieved without Waste-to-Energy facilities, since a fraction of wastes consists of non-recyclable and non- reusable materials, which provide a significant heating value that cannot be neglected as an energy source. Apart from recycling, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) treatment is achieved through various processes that aim towards the conversion of waste into useful forms of energy or easily biodegradable, stabilized products. Dedicated treatment methods for getting different refuse derived products that can be used as fuel for producing energy are available. The aim of this paper is to briefly present these methods, review their processes and reveal where their individual energy costs/losses are derived from. A review and a calculation example for the methods of Recycling, Anaerobic Digestion, Composting, Biodrying and combustion are presented concisely. Finally, these methods are compared in terms of energy costs and recovery. Moreover, the calculation methodology of the energy costs of MSW treatment facility is presented. Energy costs/losses are not a synonym for the efficiency of a MSW treatment method, but are an important factor that must be taken into consideration when designing a MSW treatment facility. Furthermore, different waste mixtures will provide different results for this study but the main conclusion remains unaltered: In terms of energy demand for waste management a percentage of methods are energy consuming and others are energy producing, or lead to significant energy savings, which is key action for a sustainable future. Municipal wastes is one of the greatest problems that the modern societies must solve. The current approach is the environmental impact of the method considering the volumes that must be treated and the sustainability of the method. Last but not least, energy consumption must be adopted in each and every human activity so as to achieve sustainable development.

Several countries have recently realized that the present development paradigm is not sustainable from an environmental and energy point of view. The growing awareness of the population regarding environmental issues is pushing governments worldwide more and more to promote policies aiming at limiting harmful effects of human development. In particular, the rapid increase of the global temperature, especially in the polar regions, and the management of human wastes, mainly plastic in seas, are some of the main points to be addressed by these novel policies. Several actions must be implemented in order to limit such issues. Unfortunately, the recent COP 24 Conference was not successful, but hopefully an agreement will be established in 2020 at the COP 26 Conference. The effort performed by policymakers must be mandatorily supported by the scientific community. In this framework, this paper aims at showing that countries worldwide are trying to negotiate an agreement to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, in this paper all the researchers reported can provide quantitative measures of the actions to be implemented in order to address a sustainable and efficient use of energy. Here, innovations in terms of novel efficient and environmentally friendly technologies mainly based on renewable energy sources have been also investigated. The study also highlights different sectors that have been involved for this aim, such as energy conversion systems, urban areas, mobility, sustainability, water management, social aspects, etc. In this framework, specific conferences are periodically organized in order to provide a forum for discussion regarding these topics. In this area the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) conference is the most ordinary conference. The 13th Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Conference was held in Palermo, Italy in 2018. The current Special Issue of Energies, precisely dedicated to the 13th SDEWES Conference, is based on three main topics: energy policy and energy efficiency in urban areas, energy efficiency in industry and biomass and other miscellaneous energy systems.

This paper presents a part of the study referring to exploring Energy Recovery from Municipal Solid Waste in Maramures County. In order to analyze the possibility of energetic recovery of municipal solid waste (MSW), data referring to the management system of MSW from Maramures county were cumulated and processed in a first stage in order to estimate the quantity of municipal solid waste and its composition, which might be recovered energetically. In the next stage, samples of municipal solid waste were collected from landfills, which were submitted to specific processing and analyses. The experimental data were processed and in the end the energy potential of municipal solid waste from Maramures county was found. This study will help stakeholders and those involved in waste management to assess the possibility of energy recovery. The analysis of the study concluded that municipal solid waste in Maramures County is a potential source of renewable energy.

Waste-to-energy status in Serbia

The European Union's approach to waste management is based on three principles: prevention, recycling, and reuse. The introduction to Directive 2006/12/EC of the European Parliament and the Council on Waste states that “the recovery of waste and the use of recovered materials as raw materials should be encouraged in order to conserve natural resources”. According to the newest Directive 2008/98/EC on waste recovery is one of the five objectives of environment-friendly waste management. The targets for re-use and recycling of waste, which should be attained by 2020, is:  for re-use and the recycling of waste materials such as at least paper, metal, plastic and glass from households and possibly from other origins as far as these waste streams are similar to waste from households, shall be increased to a minimum of overall 50% by weight;  and for non hazardous construction and demolition waste: defined in category 17 05 04 in the list of waste shall be increased to a minimum of 70% by weight (EC, 2008). Moreover, the Directive 2004/12/EC (amending Directive 94/62/EC) on packaging and packaging waste was adopted. This Directive aims to harmonize national measures in order to prevent or reduce the impact of packaging and packaging waste on the environment. Therefore the recovery (60% in 2014) and recycling (55% in 2014) targets were established and must be met by each member state. In Poland, although the recycling level for municipal waste has been increasing, it still remains at a very low level (approximately 8%). One of the reasons for this is that there are two parallel systems, which are responsible for separate collection, i.e.:  system for local communes, which are responsible for management of all type of municipal waste,  system for entrepreneur-manufactures, which are obliged for recovery and recycling of packaging waste. On both systems the market conditions, i.e. relatively high cost of separate collection, which depends on the amount of collected material, the unit size of the waste material, the quality

Assessment of the greenhouse effect impact of technologies used for energy recovery from municipal waste: A case for England

Municipal solid waste management in developing countries faces limitations, especially concerning technologies for treatment and disposal, which is crucial for achieving environmental and economic sustainability goals. This paper investigates municipal solid waste management in Laos, compared with the ASEAN-Japan regions, focusing on background information, waste characteristics, environmental impact, and treatment technologies for resource utilization. The findings indicate a continuous rise in municipal waste generation in Laos, particularly in the capital Vientiane, from 0.21 million tons in 2012 to 0.37 million tons in 2021. Treatment methods include unsanitary landfilling, basic recycling, and open dumping, as well as burning or discharge into rivers, posing potential risks to the environment and human health. Japan and Singapore have shown decreasing trends, with Japan reducing from 45.23 million tons in 2012 to 40.95 million tons in 2021 and Singapore from 7.27 million tons in 2021 to 6.94 million tons in 2021. Laos encounters challenges in managing municipal waste, especially in waste recovery and waste-to-energy practices, crucial elements of integrated solid waste management aimed at promoting environmental and economic sustainability. Enhancing waste management in Laos involves developing a waste management act with segregation, recycling, and extended producer responsibility policies. Implementing mechanical biological treatment facilities, waste-to-energy plants, and upgraded landfills is crucial. Capacity building and public awareness campaigns on waste management will improve sustainability, reduce environmental impacts, and advance sustainable development goals for sustainable cities and communities.

Waste production is greater every year with society evolution. The same problem is also in Slovak republic, but Slovakia is significantly behind other developed countries in municipal waste management especially in area of energy utilization and recovery of the municipal waste. This problem will be totally reflected after the ban of the waste dumping in landfills. This work solves the problem of waste management in the Žilina region of Slovakia. Žilina region produces approximately 185000 tons of municipal waste. At present there is the majority of the waste dumped in the landfills. Large part of this waste could be energy utilized. Except municipal waste can be also used other types of the waste for the energy utilization. The paper evaluates energy potential of municipal waste in Žilina region. During the work it was determined the ratio composition of the waste in the Žilina region. There were measured gross calorific value, low calorific value and humidity on the waste samples. Based on these results it was determined energy potential of the municipal waste in the Žilina region. This energy potential could provide part of the heat and electricity for the Žilina region after using appropriate methods of thermal disposal.

Energy sources are not unlimited in the world and energy sources that are not unlimited are consumed rapidly. Energy is very precious and is an essential tool for our survival. In the globalizing world, thanks to technological advances, many facilities have been created, but technological pollution is increasing and all living things are affected, along with humans. If we want to live in a healthy, happy and peaceful life on earth, we must save on energy use, increase the use of renewable energy and reduce technological pollution by using technological tools carefully. We can turn this into an advantage by making small changes in our daily life. In this study, Turkey's major cities, increasing the sensitivity of employees in health care, energy effectively and efficiently to ensure the use, reduce technological pollution and sustainable to create an environment and was conducted in order to create the livable world for future generations. 229 healthcare workers participated in the study by random questionnaire method and face to face questionnaire was applied. Demographic and effective use of energy and technological pollution scale were used in the survey. The collected data were analyzed with statistical package programs used in the social sciences. Descriptive analyzes, T-test and Anova tests were performed. When the efficient use of energy and technological pollution were compared with gender, no significant difference was found between them except for the technological pollution sub-dimension. Technological pollution average scores of men are higher than women. When the efficient use of energy and technological pollution are compared with marital status, there is no significant difference except for the efficient use of energy. It was observed that the average scores of singles inefficient use of energy were higher than those who were married. Efficient use of energy and technological pollution were compared with age range, education level and occupation, and a significant difference was found between the effective use of energy and the efficient use of energy, which is a sub-dimension of technological pollution, and education levels. No significant relationship was found in other comparisons. Necessary suggestions were made at the end of the study.