Current state of Waste Management >>>

As a completion of the intensive cooperation of the export initiative Environmental Technologies "Sustainable Waste and Recycling Management in Croatia", a high-ranking 30-member delegation from Croatia visited Bavaria.

Dr. Sunil Kumar, Principal Scientist and Head, Head of WtERT India had a meeting with Dipl.-Ing. Werner Bauer and Dipl.-Ing. Hedwig Vielreicher in Munich, Bavaria.

This annual report summarizes WtERT-Germany's activities, like the outcome of the website's relaunch, our consultancy projects in Croatia and Tunisia as well as hosting/delegation of guests in 2018. In addition, it gives a glimpse of what we are about to do in 2019.

A tunisian delegation came to Munich during 26 ^th- 30 ^th of November 2018. They visited the technical site at municipal utilities, city of Rosenheim, as well as BSA GmbH to take a look at construction waste recycling, bio waste fermentation and recycling of electronic waste. To round off the program, a workshop with contributions from Tunisian and Bavarian experts took place.

Tracer Based Sorting is an innovative approach for waste Management enabling material or product sorting regardless of their physical properties. The technology is based on applying inorganic marker substances in ppm concentrations in or on the objects to be sorted. These substances can later be detected in the recycling process, serving either to remove contaminants or to recover valuable materials from the waste stream. Five German companies along with two universities and one associated networking partner are working on the pilot development of Tracer Based Sorting for plastic packaging recycling in a collaborative research Project.

Emission reduction in power plants.

The EU-Reference Document for emissions control under the European Union‘s Directive 2010/75/EU at Large Combustion Plants (LCP – i.e at coal-fired power plants – was finalized in 2017, establishing Prof. Vosteen‘s Bromine-Enhanced-Mercury-Oxidation (BEMO-technology) as a BAT. In April 2018, the corresponding Waste Incineration BREF has undergone its final revisions by the Technical Working Group, coordinated by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission’s Science and Knowledge Service in Seville; for mercury emissions control at Waste Incineration Plants (WIP) the BEMO-technology was established as a BAT, as well. The following paper will report about applications of the technology at divers WIP in Germany (since 2001) and in France (since 2014). A special issue are mercury emission peaks as caused by unforeseen (sometimes criminal) input of hidden mercury; also this problem can be handled easily, as will be described again below.

Municipal waste treatment by incineration is both efficient in oxidation of the organic waste constituents and in destruction of organic pollutants whilst allowing for energy recovery. Heavy metals and other inorganic pollutants, however, cannot be destroyed by combustion. Under the change of reducing and oxidizing conditions in the furnace, they may change their form of binding. In reduced state or as chlorine compounds, several heavy metals such as lead, zinc, cadmium and others may temporarily volatilise into the gas phase and distribute between bottom ash, boiler ash and fly ash. The share volatilised will be disposed of with the boiler ash and with the flue gas cleaning residues. The share of heavy metals not volatilised remains in the incinerator bottom ash (IBA) and will contribute to the hazard potential.

The UNEP Minamata Agreement of 2013 has set itself the goal of reducing mercury emissions worldwide. The name comes from incidents in Minamata, Japan, where in the 1950s, about 3,000 people died of mercury poisoning due to the discharge of mercury-containing wastewater into the sea.

Sewage sludge treatment routes are mostly well established in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. While there are different approaches, the problem or task of processing and handling sewage sludge is widely considered solved. So why is this a trending topic?

In 2017 the German sewage sludge ordinance (AbfKlärV) was amended to include a phased-in requirement for the recovery of phosphorus from sewage sludge commencing in 2029. Furthermore, regulations for the land application of sewage sludge are becoming more stringent in Germany.

The experiences gained during the last decades with fouling and corrosion in power plants fired with difficult fuels like waste derived from household and/or industry strongly influence the design of the boilers and the materials used. It is a lessons learned situation, at least for fuels dominated by household derived waste. Conservative steam parameters as well as high quality and high performance materials are commonly accepted as necessary.

Following the introduction of Industrial Emission Directive (IED) in 2010, the position of WI-BREF with regard to the approval of new plants and also the continued operation of existing plants changed considerably. With the IED it was stipulated that ...

In this project, which is being worked on by Fraunhofer Umsicht Sulzbach-Rosenberg with WtERT Germany and em & s, a recycling center is to be set up, among other things, in which various valuable waste materials, e.g. old electrical equipment can be registered.

22 July – 28 July 2018: During a one-week technical information seminar (FIS) in Bavaria, eleven professionals and managers from private commercial enterprises, governmental authorities, and lecturers from universities visited Bavaria.