Biological waste treatment: EU “throwing away wealth” in landfill and incineration, as ZWE calls for tougher policies

17 Apr 2023 --- Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) is calling on EU policymakers to make material recovery and biological treatment (MRBT) of mixed waste mandatory. The organization has found the method is cost-competitive with controversial, traditional incineration practices and would help drive down the bloc’s emissions footprint. 

Janek Vahk, climate energy and air pollution program coordinator for ZWE, tells PackagingInsights that current and recently revised legislation like the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD) could be a “good first step” for lawmakers to oblige waste managers to use MRBT. 

MRBT-based systems combine biological treatment, stabilizing fermentable materials still included in mixed waste, with sorting equipment to recover materials not targeted or captured by separate collection.

“Currently, increasing quantities of mixed waste, which is not separately collected, get incinerated. Also, some are still landfilled (sometimes without proper pre-treatment,” says Vahk.

Separating mixed waste for recovery and biological treatment could drive down emissions and public costs, according to ZWE.In Europe, roughly 116 million tons of waste end up either burned or landfilled versus 115 million tons that get recycled or composted, he explains. 

“Practically, it means that many materials are not captured by separate collection systems for different reasons. It also means that those many valuable materials can be and should be recovered for recycling, rather than incinerated or landfilled.”

“In discarding used resources as waste and then spending more to extract and import new resources to take their place, Europe is effectively throwing away wealth that could otherwise remain in circulation for longer. This not only leaves the EU exposed to geopolitical uncertainties and price volatility. It also misses a significant economic opportunity.”

Reducing landfilling and incineration
In order to promote biological treatment, the EU needs to reconsider landfill taxes and restrictions, asserts Vahk.

“These [landfill taxes] are often designed too crudely. Essentially the aim of those instruments should be to stop landfilling of unstabilized waste to avoid methane generation.”

To achieve these targets, the ZWE recommends: 

• Amending the existing landfill minimization target from 10% landfilling (by 2035) to zero landfilling of untreated waste by 2030.
• Requiring member states to differentiate tax rates for landfilling of stabilized and unstabilized waste.
• Requiring member states to tax waste incineration or include it in the EU-Emissions Trading Scheme.
• Requiring implementation of mixed waste sorting before landfilling and incineration either via mandating it through the revision of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) or the Industrial Emissions Directive (or both).
• Removiong the R1 formula in Annex II of the WFD so that municipal waste incineration can no longer be classified as recovery.

To promote material recovery from mixed waste, the EU also needs to legislate mixed waste sorting and put the right economic incentives in place, Vahk stresses.Incineration produces a negligible amount of energy and poses a threat to human and environmental health, according to research.

MRBT benefits 
According to a recent study by Reloop, the MRBT system is the most climate-friendly option for mixed waste. A study released last week, commissioned by ZWE, shows that MRBT systems are const-competitive with incineration and landfilling. 

“This is why we are calling for a new strategy for managing mixed waste based on MRBT,” continues Vahk. The most important aspect of the MRBT system is its inherent flexibility, he explains. 

“The mechanical treatment section and the biological treatment section, maybe in a later stage, turned into clean MRF (Material Recovery Facility) for all materials coming from the separate collection and composting for clean organics coming from the separate collection.”

“So, one may start serving an area to treat a certain amount of mixed waste while increasing or starting separate collections. Eventually, they will have less mixed waste and more clean organics and clean plastics, paper and other metals materials coming via separate collections, but they can use the same site for dealing with both.”

Challenges and opportunities
For ZWE, Vahk says the main implementation challenge is that the current review of the WFD is very limited in scope.

 “It basically focuses on two elements: EPR for textiles and food waste targets. We need a much broader revision of the directive to create a framework for decades to come.”

“There are several ongoing opportunities to make material recovery from mixed waste mandatory, such as the current revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive and the PPWD, he says.”

“Also, the good news is that the EU institutions recently agreed in the context of the Renewable Energy Directive that member states may require mixed waste sorting to remove fossil materials. This is a good first step in the right direction. It’s now up to member states to make it mandatory.”

Finally, the European Commission recently published a new set of criteria for activities that could be considered as contributing substantially to the transition to a circular economy. This new taxonomy now includes mixed waste sorting under the waste sector activities.

By Louis Gore-Langton