2022 Waste-to-Energy Research And Technology (WtERT) Asia Meeting: Going into New Technologies and Best Practices to Promote Wide Application

Energy and metals recovery from urban wastes (waste-to-energy or WtE) is one of the key areas that can help address this issue.

Columbia University in the City of New York

Recent catastrophic events have made climate change a major environmental issue. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that methane (CH4) is 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year horizon; and 80 times stronger over a 20-year horizon, a timeframe which is increasingly seen as essential in combating climate change.

Energy and metals recovery from urban wastes (waste-to-energy or WtE) is one of the key areas that can help address this issue.

Over the past 15 years, China has made tremendous progress in building WtE plants that replace landfills, which are considered to be the third-largest anthropogenic source of methane (CH4) globally, accounting for approximately 11% of estimated global methane emissions. China has also invested an estimated US$25 billion in building WtE facilities through national policy and economic incentives. Today, China's WtE capacity is equal to that of the European Union, the United States, and Japan combined.

In addition, the "mass production" of Chinese WtE plants has significantly reduced the cost per ton investment (CAPEX) of these facilities, providing a model of waste disposal that can be afforded and adopted by developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa.

The 2022 Waste-To-Energy Research And Technology (WtERT) Asia Meeting, co-organized by Columbia Global Centers | Beijing and the Global Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council (Global WtERT Council), comprised four sessions focusing on waste-to-energy technologies and their applicability, as well as the best practices in different countries and regions.