Power Station Fuel is........

Not ideal, but probably not quite as bad as the tabloid headlines try to suggest.


The market for recyclable materials is still far from mature - so at times it can be difficult to find a use for everything - burning it locally is probably preferable to shipping it out to 3rd world countries where it was claimed it would be recycled but in practice ended up just being dumped or burned as rubbish in the open air.


Claimed CO₂ emissions also have to be taken with a pinch of salt - depending on how much CO₂ absorption is associated with the materials being burned - if it's paper/cardboard that originated from sustainably managed forest the nett CO₂ emissions from the actual burning would be minimal - and probably significantly lower overall than shipping woodchip from the US to burn in UK power stations - but if it's plastic made from oil, then it could be significant. I guess in practice it's likely to be a mix of the two, but that working on that basis would probably dilute the headline numbers.


They seem to mix up overall waste figures and recycleable waste figures at times - presumably that too gives more headline-worth numbers.


Personally I'm not a fan of incineration, especially where plastics based material in involved - but if it's going to be burned anyway (some areas have a long history of incinerating refuse) better to generate power from it than not I say.


   - Andy.

I don't have a problem with incineration. I am led to believe that the filtering systems are now very affective. The return is immediate heat and power generation. The cost of recycling is still relatively prohibative because of the logistics of transport, cleaning, profit margins etc. Think of crisp packets as a mixture of plastics, metals and goodness knows what.

I think individual councils would need to develop their own recycling regime. Basically, if they demand that their 'clients' recycle then they, the local authorities, are responsible for fullfilling their obligations.

I do think that each council should tell their public where the rubbish is going.

Legh

Our local waste incinerator has taken it a step further with an experimental CO2 capture system. The CO2 is then piped to nearby greenhouses to enhance the growth of the plants. The greenhouses are already heated with lowgrade waste heat from the incinerator. Greenhouses would normaly be heated and CO2 enhanced by using gas or oil heating.

The top grade heat is used for electricity generation, and the next level for district heating.

The waste that is burnt is 'final grade' waste. We are financially encouraged to recycle everything possible by a charge of over £1 for a 35 litre waste bag.

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/swiss-startup-shows-potential-of-co2-capture/


Refuse incineration provides 2.5% of Switzerlands energy requirements and just under 4% of it's electricity.

https://opendata.swiss/en/dataset/kehrichtverbrennungsanlagen-kva