ETS for EfW Webinar Q&A: What Can I Do If I Don’t Have Recycling Or Sorting Capabilities? What Are My Options?
We’re back to answer some of the audience’s questions from our webinar with Materials Recycling World about how independent waste operators can prepare for the inclusion of Energy from Waste (EfW) in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
In this blog, we’ll answer the question, “What can I do if I don’t have recycling or sorting capabilities? What are my options?”
If you haven’t already, now is undoubtedly the time to consider your options around recycling or sorting provision. The upcoming expansion of the ETS to incorporate EfW will add impetus to the need to recycle and/or repurpose waste in a more sustainable and less costly manner.
However, many smaller waste handlers don’t have onsite recycling and sorting resources. In this case, several options are available.
Of course, EfW remains one of these options. It is a potential route to take if you are not going to sort and separate waste.
Alternatively, Mixed Residual Waste (MRW) can be sent to a dirty Materials Recovery Facility (dirty MRF). These facilities can segregate some valuable materials, such as ferrous and nonferrous, and may even be able to remove a fraction of plastics. They generally produce a Refuse-Derived Fuel. For onward recycling, processors typically prefer ‘cleaner’ materials, such as those from kerbside collected recyclates sent to a clean MRF.
A third option is to process your MRW into Solid Recoverable Fuel (SRF) using on-site biotechnology.
Waste handlers can put Advetec’s cost-effective biotechnology on-site and configure it to fit within their existing operations without requiring significant capex or vast amounts of time to make it happen. If you’re a smaller waste handler, this gives you access to an off-take route that was previously unavailable. Turning this waste into a high-yield energy source provides a ready alternative to fossil fuels. And, as the resulting SRF often has a higher proportion of biogenic carbon – which is not subject to the ETS – it’s in high demand from some of the world’s heaviest industries, such as cement production.
The biotechnology route also aids the sorting process, as it turns MRW into a dry, homogenous material (with significantly reduced mass), which means plastics and metals can be easily extracted for further processing.
It’s essential to consider each alternative option in terms of the value that could be reaped from recoverable materials, the tax implications of your chosen processing route—now and in the future—and the carbon-reduction potential.