Why Now? - Trends, Facts, and Figures
- Costs and requirements
- Global cost of dealing with trash is rising from $205 billion in 2010 to $375 billion in 2025
- Landfill space can cost up to $1,500,000 an acre. Incineration is $300 / ton to process. Gasification less than $40/Ton and this does not take into consideration sales of by-products, transportation savings.
- Cost of tipping fees are rising
- Transportation cost are expensive and rising
- In low income countries, waste management costs comprise 20% of municipal budgets on average
- Increasing global waste generation
- Global demand for energy increasing
- By-product value
- Plastics and paper are worth more for their Btu content (fuel) than as repurposed plastic and paper. The transportation of these material contributes to GHG (Green House Gases)
- Food and yard waste have high Btu content. When landfilled or composted, they release their inherent energy to the environment and produce GHGs (methane and CO2) without delivering any benefit
- Plastics, which can contaminate waterways and ecosystems for thousands of years, comprise 12% of all waste
- Benefits smaller communities
- China refusing our waste is forcing small/medium sized municipalities to find new long-term solutions for municipal solid waste, “recycling” and yard waste
- Financially, small and medium sized municipalities can’t participate in waste-to-energy solutions
- Historically waste-to-energy solutions have relied on incineration, which requires big infrastructures and create CO2, dioxins, furans
- Usually does not address recyclables, yard-waste, NRP’s, tires etc.
- Sorting and clean waste-to-energy solutions require big plants and high volumes
- Domestic scrap metal markets require clean and sorted materials
- Composting and trucking to landfills/ recycling centers also create CO2.
- Composting requires land, people, equipment, diesel fuel and a user for the end-product. It wastes the organic energy and creates lots of GHGs with little measurable benefit. (when organic material is instead placed in a landfill, it will emit greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, a result of decomposing anaerobically (without oxygen).
- A booming waste burden could also contribute to climate change impact, with the treatment and disposal of current waste levels generating around 5 percent of carbon emissions
- Shifts in the industry
- Dramatic shifts in recycling industry, increased trucking fees, landfill closings
- China's decision earlier this year to implement a ban on the import of 24 categories of recyclable materials, including many common plastics used in consumer goods, has shocked recycling systems around the world
- Running out of landfill/waste disposal space
GLOBAL PROBLEM
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- Globally, people annually generate 4 billion tons of all types of waste and is expected to increase to 6 billion by 2025
- Global waste could increase by 70% by 2050, according to the World Bank
- According to a report by the World Bank, a third of the world's waste is dumped openly on land and in water, with no treatment.
GLOBAL ENERGY DEMAND EXPECTED TO RISE
- Global energy needs expected to grow, with fossil fuels remaining dominant source
- Between 2005 and 2030, energy needs are projected to expand by 55%, with demand increasing from 11.4 billion tons of oil equivalent to 17.7 billion
- Global waste to energy market is anticipated to grow with a CAGR of 6.22% to generate a revenue of $57.32 billion by 2027. For the market study of waste to energy technologies and processes, the base year considered is 2018 and the forecast period is from 2019 to 2027
- Global gas demand expanded at its fastest rate since 2010, with year-on-year growth of 4.6%, second consecutive year of strong growth, driven by higher demand and substitution from coal
- Demand growth was led by the US
- Gas demand in China increased by almost 18%
- Oil demand grew 1.3% worldwide, with US again leading global increase for first time in 20 years thanks to strong expansion in petrochemicals, rising industrial production and trucking services
- Global coal consumption rose 0.7%, with increases seen only in Asia, particularly in China, India and a few countries in South and Southeast Asia
- Nuclear also grew by 3.3% in 2018, with global generation reaching pre-Fukushima levels, mainly as a result of new additions in China and restart of four reactors in Japan.
- Worldwide, nuclear plants met 9% of increase in electricity demand
- In addition to increased waste generation, global demand for energy will increase by 56% between 2010 and 2040 with the greatest demands in the developing countries
- According to world bank, currently 1.2 billion people without access to electricity
- In India alone, 300 million lack any access to power and another 400 million have limited access
GLOBAL ENERGY DEMANDS 1990-2040
Increase by 56%!
TRASH INCINERATION IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE WAY TO MAKE ENERGY
INCREASING COST OF PROCESSING MSW
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OPPORTUNITY FOR ENERGY RECOVERY
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PROJECTED WASTE-TO-ENERGY MARKET WORLD-WIDE 2014-2024 (In Billions of Dollars)Global Market is expected to grow at a compound average growth rate of 5.9% from 2014 - 2024 |
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PORTABLE UNITS PROVIDE DISASTER RELIEF - NATURAL AND MAN-MADE
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PORTABLE UNITS PROVIDE FOR MSW AND MILITARY BASES
Note: Over 7500 soldiers have filed claims due to the existing methods of disposing of garbage. This chart does not include building materials and other goods.
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MSW & CRUISE SHIPS
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DISCARDED TIRES = ENERGY
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Valuable BTUs
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CURRENT NON-RECYCLABLE MATERIALS
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- No sorting cost or transportation cost to the landfill with gasification as it is processed on-site
- Gasification will process 100% of non-recyclable plastics which has a very valuable BTU content
- Energy output is twice the value of incineration and 100% more value than landfilling
- Currently non-recyclable products (NRP’s) are taken from recycling centers back to the landfill exceeding costs of $23 per ton
MATERIALS DISCARDED IN MSW STREAM
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Example: Rumpke Landfill in Cincinnati, Ohio is over 300 acres. If we used a cost factor of $250,000 per acre the total closure cost would be $75,000,000 (M) |
NOW NRP'S HAVE A VALUE BEYOND THE LANDFILL
- In Los Angeles area alone, 10 metric tons of fragments carried into Pacific Ocean every day —like grocery bags, straws and soda bottles
- Last ten years have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century
- 50 percent of plastic utilized is used just once and thrown away
- Enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the earth four times
- World produces more than 14 million US tons of polystyrene (plastic foam) each year
- Average American throws away approximately 185 pounds of plastic per year
- Plastic accounts for around 10 percent of total waste generated
- More than 480 billion plastic bottles were sold worldwide in 2016 - up from about 300 billion only a decade ago
- More than half a billion plastic straws are used every day around the world
- About one trillion single-use plastic bags are used annually across the globe – nearly 2 million every minute
NRP PROBLEM
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- 44 percent of all seabird species, 22 percent of cetaceans, all sea turtle species and a growing list of fish species have been documented with plastic in or around their bodies
- World uses 500 billion plastic cups every year
- Amount of bubble wrap that is produced annually is enough to wrap around Equator ten times
- orders account for around 269,000 US tons of plastic waste that has entered oceans
- Over half of world’s plastic thrown out in 2015 was plastic packaging – over 141 million metric tons
- Billions of pounds of plastic can be found in swirling convergences in the oceans making up about 40 percent of the world's ocean surfaces
- Eighty percent of pollution enters the ocean from the land
PLASTICS - YOU WON'T BELIEVE
- Total U.S. plastic waste generation grows 3.8% per year (2015 vs 2014 growth rate from USEPA) from 34.5 million tons in 2015 to 38.5 million tons in 2018
- Takes 500 -1,000 years for plastic to degrade
- Production of plastic uses around 8% of the world's oil production (bioplastics) and not a good solution as they require food source crops
- Americans throw away 35 billion plastic water bottles every year
- 46 percent of plastics float (EPA 2006) drifting for years before eventually concentrating in ocean gyres
- Plastic constitutes approximately 90% of all trash floating on the ocean's surface, with 460,000 pieces of plastic per square mile
- Currently recover only five percent of the plastics produced
- Virtually every piece of plastic that was ever made still exists in some shape or form (with exception of small amount that has been incinerated)
- Some of these compounds in plastics alter hormones or have other potential human health effects
MEDICAL WASTE
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