1. Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants
The percepti
on of
Waste-to-Ene
rgy
WASTECON 2009 Dr. Ella Stengler
Long Beach CEWEP - Managing Director

2. CEWEP
Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants
CEWEP represents about 380
Waste-to-Energy plants across
Europe, 88% of the European
market.
They thermally treat household
and similar waste, that remains
after waste prevention, reuse
and recycling by generating
energy from it.
This is how they replace fossil
fuels, such as coal, used by
conventional power plants.

3. Waste-to-Energy in Europe
Finland
1 0.05
• Waste-to-Energy Plants in Europe operating in 2007 Norway
(not including hazardous waste incineration plants) 20 0.9
Sweden
• Thermally treated household and similar waste Estonia
30 4.5
Latvia
Denmark
29* 3.5 Lithuania
Ireland
United Kingdom
20 4.4 Netherlands
Poland
11 5.8 Germany 1 0.05
Belgium 67 17.8
16 2.6 Czech Republic
Luxembourg
3 0.4 Slovakia
1 0.1
Data supplied by CEWEP members
2 0.2*
unless specified otherwise Austria Hungary
France Switzerland 8 1.6 1 0.4 Romania
130 12.3 28 3.6 Slovenia
Italy
51 4 Bulgaria
Portugal
Spain
3 1
10 1.8 Greece
* From Eurostat to give an estimate only, as co-incineration plants are included. * Data for 2006 used as data for 2007 are not yet available.

4. The perception of NGOs

5. Perceptions
God
Recycles
&
The Devil
Burns

6. What we did …
Making alliances: Coalition of
European Associations tackling main
concerns raised by NGOs
Waste Management in user-friendly
language
A little humour goes a long way
All available on www.cewep.eu

7. Dinner/Lunch debates
and Technical visits

8. Communication approach
Transparency and open dialogue
With the press
• all emission results
• consistent, persistent
• press briefings, press releases
With the neighbours
• ombudsman
• all emission results first to neighbours
• involved in new initiatives
With the general public
• through media
• brochure
With the authorities
• face-to-face contacts
Recommendations from Tom De Bruyckere’s
• road shows presentation on ISVAG WtE Plant, Belgium at
the CEWEP Congress 2008

9. Communication approach
Information
In countries where people are familiar with WtE
(e.g. long tradition in Scandinavian countries)
perception much better than in countries without
WtE
-> Information is essential
…. Some facts and figures ….

10. Treatment of MSW in Europe
> 40% of Municipal Solid
Waste across the EU 27 is
still landfilled,
although landfill gases
(methane) contribute
significantly to global
warming (methane equals
25 times CO2 in mass).
Treatment of Municipal Solid Waste in the EU
27 in 2007
Source: EUROSTAT

11. Waste Hierarchy
The 5step waste hierarchy
in the European Waste
Framework Directive helps
to achieve sustainable
waste management,
placing prevention at the
top and disposal (such as
landfilling) as the least
favoured option.

12. WtE hand in hand with Recycling
The Member States who have most successfully
reduced dependence on landfill have done this by
combining:
• material recycling
• biological treatment (composting and anaerobic
digestion)
• and Waste-to-Energy
Proving that WtE goes hand in hand with
Recycling.

13. Treatment of MSW in the EU 27 in 2007
Source: EUROSTAT

14. WtE: cleanly and safely
treating your waste
Sophisticated filtering devices minimise the emissions
into the atmosphere by blocking the pollutants,
originating from the waste, such as heavy metals.
The Waste Incineration Directive 2000/76/EC
introduced the most stringent emission limit values
applied to any single industry in Europe.

15. WtE plant (MVR) Hamburg,
operating Best Available Techniques (BAT)

17. Lisbon Univers
Health studies of Preventive M
ity's Institute
edicine:
waste incinerat
ion "does not
impact on dioxin
blood levels
of nearby resid
ents" of
Waste-to-Energ
y plants
www.sciencedir
ect.com
UK Committ
ee of Carcino
“any potentia genity:
l risk of canc
residency nea er due to
r to municipa
waste inciner l solid
ators was exc
low, and prob eedingly
ably not mea
by the most m surable
odern
epidemiologi
cal technique
http://www.ad s”
visorybodies.d
k/Coc/munipw oh.gov.u
st.htm

18. Health studies
The Scientific Advisory Council of the Federal Medical Association
(Germany) investigated potential health risks caused by emissions of
Waste-to-Energy Plants, concluding:
“The evaluation conducted shows that currently
operating Waste-to-Energy Plants, which are
conform to the technical standards, cause very
marginal health risks which can therefore be
classified as negligible health risks for the
population living in the vicinity of Waste-to-Energy
Plants”
Source: German Medical Journal 90, edition 1 / 2, 11th of January 1993,
p. 45-53, Publications

19. WtE: Contributing to climate
protection
WtE plants replace fossil fuels, such as
coal, which would have been
used by conventional power plants to
produce the energy which is generated by
WtE plants.
This is how they save CO2 emissions and
reduce Europe’s dependence on limited
fossil fuel resources.

21. WtE’s contribution to renewable
energy generation
Directive on Energy from Renewable Sources (RES):
Definition of biomass (Art. 2) comprises the
biodegradable fraction of industrial and municipal
waste
 renewable energy source

22. The RES Directive
► 20% share of renewables in overall EU energy
consumption
Ambitious targets: today 8.5% of energy is renewable.
To achieve a 20% share by 2020 will require major
efforts across all sectors of the economy and by all
Member States.

23. WtE’s contribution to
renewable energy generation
67,9% of the EU 27’s renewable energy sources comes
from biomass and waste,
12% of which is from municipal waste [1].
WtE already supplies a considerable amount of renewable energy
-> about 34 billion Kilowatt-hours (34 Terawatt-hours)
reference year: 2006 [2]
(= ca. 50% of the total energy generation by WtE Plants as we assume
50% biodegradable part in MSW )
[1] European Environment Agency, "Maximising the environmental benefits of Europe’s bioenergy
potential", Technical report 2008 http://reports.eea.europa.eu/technical_report_2008_10/en
[2] Electricity consumption @ 3500 kWh per household
Heat consumption @ 16500 kWh heat per household, which is the average heat consumption of
households in Dk and NL)

24. Renewable energy 2006
by (selected) country

25. Renewable Energy 2020
by (selected) country

26. WtE Renewable Energy development

27. Share of renewable Energy from WtE as
a % of total renewable energy for
selected countries
Assumption is that countries do achieve their binding target for
renewable energy by 2020.
Country 2006 2020
NL 14,3 4,4
BE 13,3 2,5
DK 12,5 6,3
DE 7,5 3,0
CZ 3,9 3,3
SE 3,7 4,7
UK 3,6 1,8
Decline of % contributed by WtE is because total renewable energy
per country must grow much faster in order to meet the target.

28. tE
e benefits of W
Communicate th
• WtE helps to reduce both, dependence on landfill and
limited fossil fuel resources
• is a cost-effective and reliable renewable energy
source
• is an effective option to reduce GHG emissions
• the technology (grate furnace) is robust
and proven for decades of experience

29. Apropos robust and proven ….
What about the “innovative” alternatives to WtE, such as
gasification, pyrolisis, mechanical biological treatment
(MBT) etc?
Are they proven?
Are they robust enough to take the residual heterogenous
waste?
Can MBT avoid the non beloved “incineration”?
Can MBT avoid landfilling?

30. MBT
One has to bear in mind that MBT is only a pretreatment.
It does not work without landfilling or thermal treatment.
Does this pretreatment have advantages
- From an environmental point of view?
- From a hygiene point of view? working conditions for
employees?
- From an economic point of view?
Let’s have a look what the experts say, …
from a country which gathered some appropriate experience

31. MBT
German advisory council on the environment (SRU):
2008 environment policy report
10.2.4 Conclusions and Suggestions:
“The mechanical-biological treatment of waste (MBT) has been
established as complementary to incineration, but it is still fighting
with the fulfillment of the edge conditions like security of disposal,
conformity with current legislation and economics. Due to these open
questions, further constructions of MBT plants are currently not
advised. There are chances of this treatment when being enhanced
to a material flow method before incineration or as an export
technology”.
The SRU is a scientific advisory board of the German Government to which it
delivers every 4 years an environment report.
http://www.umweltrat.de/02gutach/downlo02/umweltg/UG_2008.pdf.

32. Desperate search for alternatives
“Are there real alternatives to incineration for the
remaining waste?”
Negative public perception of waste incineration has lead to
search desperately for alternative methods to treat this
remaining waste e.g. via gasification, pyrolysis or plasma.
However, these treatment methods do not receive any
greater sympathy from the NGOs than traditional
incineration as can be seen, inter alia, in a study by
GAIA[1].
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) on “An industry blowing smoke: 10
[1]
Reasons Why Gasification, Pyrolysis & Plasma Incineration are Not “Green Solutions”
2009 http://www.no-burn.org/downloads/BlowingSmokeReport.pdf

33. Serious alternatives to
incineration?
They mention a report by Fichtner Consulting Engineers
where it is stated that
“Many of the perceived benefits of gasification and
pyrolysis over combustion technology proved to be
unfounded.[2]”
[2] The Viability of Advanced Thermal Treatment in the UK,
Fichtner Consulting Engineers Limited, 2004, p.4

34. Communicate proven technology
100 Years of Waste Incineration in Denmark:
From Refuse Destruction Plants to
High-technology Energy Works
By Heron Kleis, Babcock & Wilcox Vølund and Søren Dalager, Rambøll (2004), p 48
http://www.cewep.eu/statements/subdir/art249,234.html

35. We are not talking about this...

36. Modern WtE is safe and clean …

37. and often even beautiful …
… and in the city centre

38. Spot the Waste-to-Energy Plant!
City of Monaco
CEWEP

39. For more information on Waste to Energy:
CEWEP
Confederation of
European Waste-to-Energy Plants
Boulevard Clovis 12A,
B-1000 Brussels
Tel. +32 2 770 63 11
Fax +32 2 770 68 14
info@cewep.eu
www.cewep.eu