Recycling of metal and aluminium knows no limits because it can be remelted as scrap indefinitely. Pressrelease: REDWAVE Bild: Fotolia

In order to treat household waste Romerike Avfallsforedling (ROAF) located in Skedsmorkorset north of Oslo, Norway required the installation of a mechanical Treatment facility to process 40,000 tpa. Together with a Norwegian based technical consultancy Mepex and German based technical consultancy EUG the project was tendered and the plant build against a technical specification. In 2013 the project was awarded to Stadler Anlagenbau and since April 2014 the plant is in operation with an hourly throughput of thirty tons. The input waste contains specific green coloured bags containing food waste which is collected together with the residual waste from the households. The process recovers successfully the green food bags before the remaining waste is mechanically pre-treated and screened to isolate a polymer rich fraction which is then fully segregated via NIR technology in to target polymers prior to fully automated product baling. Recoverable Fibre is optically targeted as well as ferrous and non-ferrous metals. All food waste is transported off site for further biological treatment and the remaining residual waste leaves site for thermal recovery. In 2015 the plant has been successfully upgraded to forty tons per hour and remains fully automated including material baling.

The waste disposal system in Poland is one of the least advanced in Europe. Despite great efforts over the last 20 years municipal waste landfilling has only reduced from 95 percent in 1991 to 73 percent in 2010. This still means that millions of tonnes of post-consumer waste continue to be landfilled.

Mexico is at the beginning of the clean and renewable energy race. The Energy Reforms were instituted only in 2014 when the new regulatory governmental entities began their work. Nonetheless, they are already working in benefit of new energy companies. There is indeed a very strong basis for a new order and reform, but there are still some areas that have only just begun to get attention.

Waste-to-Energy installations generate around 25 percent bottom ashes, that may be considered non-hazardous waste. On a total of 76 million tonnes of incinerated waste, this means a total of roughly 19 Million tonnes of bottom ashes.

In Oktover 2015, a German delegation including Werner Bauer from WtERT Germany went to Kaluga, Russia for an international exchange of experience in the fields of environment and development. There was a lecture event with an accompanying technical programme on 6./7.10.15 on the subject of waste management.

A novel Pyrometallurgical recycling route is being designed to recycle complex metallic materials containing plastics such as waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE). The new proposed methodology overcomes huge challenges like improved recovery of valuable metals, better control of hazardous substances, improved process control and recycling capacity. The recycling process for E-Scrap would be developed in such way that no waste would be obtained and all products and byproducts could be saleable materials.

The investigation of the effect of moisture on the release and enrichment of heavy metals during pyrolysis of municipal solid waste is essential. This is important owing to: (i) the increasing amount of metals in the solid product of pyrolysis beyond the normalised level; (ii) the effect of moisture on the overall cost of pyrolysis process; and (iii) the utilisation of pyrolysis products.

With increasing consumption of electrical and electronic products worldwide, the generation of electronic waste (e-waste) is growing rapidly, both in developed and developing countries. It is reported that in 2012 the generated amount in the U.S. was about 9.4 million tons and in China 7.3 million tons, just next to the U.S.

The debate about recycling of electronic waste usually focuses on information and communication technology (IT) and the recovery of critical raw materials (here critical metals) as a key issue.

Electrical and electronic equipment is a source of scarce metals such as indium, gallium and rare earth elements. Recycling is one of the most important strategies to ensure the continued supply of such elements.

Through the application of high-functional and strategically important metals, waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) has been discussed recently as a secondary “ore”. Potential future supply risks of these specifi c materials lead to the necessity of a specialized recycling of electronic goods.

1,730,794t of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) were brought on the German market in 2010. 722,567t of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) were collected from private households but only about 1.1% of those were reused.

Recovery and recycling of metals from residues is important for protecting our natural resources. Therefore we identified approaches for the utilization of residues of the German steel industry to improve resource efficiency. The study focuses on the residues blast furnace sludge, basic oxygen furnace dust/sludge and electric arc furnace (EAF) dust. The objective of the study was to find further, more efficient connections between process chains.

Worldwide many sites are presently influenced by mining and processing activities. The huge amounts of moved and treated materials have led to considerable flows of wastes and emissions. Alongside the many advantages of processed ores to our society, adverse effects in nature and risks for the environment and human health are observed.

Material Flow Analysis (MFA) is a central tool of resources management. Although data can be considered a crucial resource for resource management, there is no common understanding on what MFA data is, how it contributes to MFA results, and how it can be discussed and communicated. This study contributes to this issue by proposing a terminology for information in Material Flow Analysis, and indicating further research steps towards consistent data base analysis and data quality assessment. The approaches of this study are illustrated by examples of two nation-wide MFA case studies on metals and phosphorus. The findings can, among others, contribute to increased MFA system understanding, database communication and data quality assessment.