As on date, almost every town all over the world is facing problems of piling of huge quantity of waste material that comes to landfills. The massive quantity of waste material that comes from residential societies, commercial places or industrial units daily which can adversely affect the environment.
The emission of toxic gases, accumulation of tons of waste in landfills seriously poses threat to human as well as has been identified as a leading cause of climatic change and global warming.
In order to address issues arising due to waste, responsible governments all of the world are taking effective steps to ensure efficient waste management. With the help of SUEZ, energy generation plants have been installed in Australia where energy is generated from waste material.
Waste management and energy generation
Energy from waste is an important constituent of an efficient waste management system that contributes enormously in creating a low-carbon society.
The waste hierarchy forms the basis and order of preference for waste management include:
- Prevention- that suggests to prevent waste at first place which seems to be almost impossible
- Reuse – the existing or daily waste that could not be prevented, must be re-used as far as possible
- Recycle – what cannot be reused, must be recycled
- Residual waste- following recycle process may be used for Recovery of energy or as a last option may be sent to landfills for Disposal.
The steps of waste hierarchy can be explained as:
- Prevention • Reuse • Recycling • Recovery • Disposal
What is Energy from waste?
Energy from waste is the treatment of residual waste i.e. non-recyclable to generate energy from the waste material needs to be treated and converted for procurement of energy like heat and electricity.
SUEZ by establishing Matraville energy plant in Botany Industrial Area helps generating energy from waste. Their effort goes a long way in minimizing use of finite fossil fuel and reduce carbon emission and save environment.
The recovery of energy from waste in cogeneration energy plants like Matraville energy plant involves certain specific steps such as:
Pre-Treatment of waste process is meant to segregate recyclable waste material and prepare remaining material for sending to Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) for material recovery through Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) and Mechanical Heat Treatment (MHT) for energy conversion.
Conversion Treatment procedures needed for converting residual waste as usable energy i.e. electricity and heat using following steps:
- Incineration
- Thermal Technologies – processes include:
- Depolymerization
- Gasification
- Plasma Gasification
- Pyrolysis
- Non-Thermal Technologies – such as:
- Anaerobic digestion
- Fermentation
- Mechanical Biological Treatment
The proposal of SUEZ Water Technologies and Solutions for constructing, operating and managing a fully functional cogeneration plant i.e. Matraville energy plant in the existing Botany industrial area can be a good source of energy generation and supply electricity and steam required to power Opal Paper and Recycling Mill.
Matraville energy plant when become fully operational, will certainly reduce waste in the landfills, minimize CO2 emissions and help address waste management issues and prevent adverse impacts on human health and wildlife.
In addition, Matraville energy plant at SUEZ will help create job opportunities for the local residents and go a long way in improving financial status of people and the economic development of the nation.
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