How will the concept of building islands from construction waste tie in with current discussions on waste-to-energy technologies? MEPA chairman Andrew Calleja, speaking at a recent conference on pending waste technology decisions, disclosed that work has already started on assessing the potential for reclaiming land from the sea by depositing building waste.
Naturally there are reservations from the relevant quarter of MEPA over impacts on the marine environment. Yet lucrative property development opportunities are emerging just as the only suitable quarries for taking back construction and development waste are filling up fast. Any available landfill space must urgently be set aside for receiving only waste that has been treated in compliance with EU Directives.
What the waste strategists seem to be saying is: Dump (selected) stone waste at sea (build islands if you like) but keep landfill sites open for incinerator residues. We are going to need them, as waste treated thermally cannot be dumped at marine sites.
Even after composting all our kitchen scraps and taking every last shred of recyclable waste to bring-in sites, not everything we use is recyclable or bio-degradable. Uncaring or simply unaware, the rest of the population are hardly falling over backwards to avail themselves of the advantages of recycling and composting their waste. Friends of the Earth Malta maintains that Government should provide the human resources needed to achieve high separation at source "to avoid end-of-pipe solutions" but it has not happened.
Materials recovery facilities can go some way toward picking useful elements out of mixed rubbish for recycling. Yet according to waste consultants there will always be some remaining waste which must be "treated" before going to landfill in compliance with European Directive restrictions on waste allowed to enter such sites.
Treatment may be carried out through a variety of technologies, some of them thermal (eg. incineration) and others not. A potential by-product of the process is energy although it may be used to supplement the energy requirements of the waste plant. Incineration is energy intensive and one of the more expensive choices of waste management options being reviewed at the moment.
Decisions ahead
"Mass burn" is an alarming phrase. Yet it features in the parade of options for waste-to-energy treatment being looked at as part of the waste management strategy update. A committee was set up earlier in the year to choose from the range of technologies for treating waste, recovering energy and reducing material going to landfill.
More was heard about the debate over different waste technologies at a conference organised by AIS Environmental Ltd together with the original partners who have been involved in compiling the waste management strategy. A good understanding of available technologies and how they fit into the Maltese context is essential, noted AIS managing director Mario Schembri in his welcome address. He pointed out that segregation of waste at source is known to achieve the highest rate of recycling and avoids mixing of materials.
Some of the choices that are now coming into view on the path ahead are thermal treatment options, involving controlled burning or incineration. Others are non-thermal such as the anaerobic digestion option singled out for use at Sant'Antnin Recycling Plant. This will produce fuel in the form of biogas from the processing of kitchen scraps and other organic matter. Other "non-thermal" technologies being considered are Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) and auto-claving (TSMT) combining steam and mechanical treatment.
"All options are open at this point in time" according to the chairman of the waste strategy review committee, Kevin Gatt. "We are still in debate mode with no specific findings."
Following initial consultation with public bodies presently underway, industry and NGOs are to be consulted further down the line. While industry is on the whole pro-incineration, the general feeling among some NGOs is that incineration should not even be considered before the Maltese population has been given a fair chance to reduce, reuse and recycle.
Finding the right technologies to match the particular circumstances of our small densely populated island is proving to be a challenge. The cost must be affordable while environmental impact must be kept to a minimum. This is a tall order. Then there is the enormous question of who will pay - yet to be discussed openly. Costs vary from one type of solution to another. Wherever environmental standards are high, nothing comes cheap.
This is a critical time during which it is essential that the right choices are made for the future of waste management on these islands. Decisions must be made based on facts and on a careful weighing of real, rather than perceived, advantages and disadvantages.
Who will pay
Michael Betts, director of Integrated Skills Ltd, involved in the drawing up of the original waste management strategy for the Maltese Islands, spoke on the financial implications of decisions ahead. He warned against what had happened on the island of Guernsey where an incinerator was installed and costings had gone through the roof. This happened partly because not enough attention had been given to the way risks were allocated and the contractor was made to take too much on board when it was the client who should pay.
The Waste Framework Directive specifies that the waste producer and user of waste facilities must pay for it. Evasion of charges is an enforcement issue. Gulf States have found a solution to this in tacking charges for waste disposal onto water and electricity bills. In the event that charges are not paid the service user's water supply is cut off.
Mr Betts said that the time had come to deal with issues that had been glossed over in the pre-accession period and accused government of cherry picking the easy parts while avoiding the parts of the strategy that were politically sensitive.
"You need a more direct system of charging which reflects the Polluter Pays Principle... this was in the accession agreement. It has got to happen or there will be no sustainable position for building and integrating a sustainable waste management facility," he said.
Answering a question on disposal of sewage sludge, Mr Betts replied: "Even if you go flat out with recycling, composting and anaerobic digestion, you will be left with substantial amounts of combustible waste and process residues from composting and recycling plants.
He added that the primary purpose of treatment is to reduce the volume going to landfill over and above the production of materials or fuels. He claimed that a figure of up to 90 per cent reduction in volume was possible when incinerating municipal waste with energy recovery. An incinerator must be run near capacity therefore it is difficult to plan and balance within an integrated system.
Referring to the figure of a 63 per cent capture rate mentioned in the present waste management strategy, he said that this would never happen. Mr Betts cited a study carried out by the Resource Recovery Forum which "shows clearly why Malta will never achieve targets for recycling, composting and diversion away from landfill of waste without thermal treatment."
Security and reliability is imperative in an island context where the problem of finding viable markets for recovered products may be difficult to overcome. If the facility for some reason shuts down then the mainland option to take it somewhere else is not there. While a public-private partnership on future waste management options are envisaged it is recommended that government retains a level of control to ensure facilities are reliable. "On a small island there is no where to turn to if the facility stops operating."
Future EU legislation must be kept in mind when choosing waste to energy technologies. Tax incentives which slap high charges on waste have encouraged more minimisation and reuse of materials. But in the UK there is also evidence that it has led to illegal disposal practices.
Vince Magri, chief executive officer at WasteServ, remarked that an increase in the rate paid for municipal solid waste disposal was planned. In 1998, when an initial rate of 33c per ton was introduced as a disposal fee for construction waste, contractors had threatened to halt their work. Now the same fee stands at Lm1.19 while business in the building sector is continuing as usual.
In an overview of different types of waste treatment Andrew Street, director of SLR Consulting Ltd, focused on technologies which can be applied to municipal solid waste (MSW) since these can also be used for industrial and commercial waste streams. These technologies principally cater for residual waste, the unusable fraction which remains after separation into composting or recycling fraction.
Decision-makers in the waste field are now working under considerable pressure to comply with a range of European Directives. "There is an urgent need to move away from reliance on landfilling as the predominant disposal method. Engaging the stakeholders and segregating waste at source is the preferred approach toward achieving sustainability."
Mr Street also emphasised that recycling and composting on their own will not meet the Directives since some residual waste will always remain and must be dealt with. An infrastructure must be built up which will be capable of delivering segregation at source, materials recycling, composting and the treatment of residual waste with final disposal at landfill sites.
While the middle bit appears to be underway there is room for more development at either end of the waste hierarchy. "You can minimise, reduce, recycle but you will always require a landfill" he said. Do not stall because of perceived concerns." You have no choice - you have to move forward, he said adding that realtime monitoring data can confirm any impact on the environment.
Mr Street said that the European picture in general shows increasing reliance on thermal treatment but in several countries there has been a concurrent strong effort to keep recycling figures high because there are Directives to this effect and the trend is to ever higher recycling targets. Thermal treatment may not as a rule crowd out recycling but in Malta's case it was noted that studies had come up with some indications that we could fall short of achieving such a high recycling rate.
"We are getting beyond the level of detection for dioxins now," claimed Mike Hession, managing director of Waste Management Engineering Ltd UK, in a reference to monitoring. Dioxins produced during incineration are destroyed at high temperatures but can reform again when flue gases cool down. The experts say that "gas quenching" can be introduced to combat reforming of dioxins by rapidly bringing the temperature of the gases down to below 400°C.
A specialist in thermal waste treatment technologies, Mr Hession has been involved in the development of a Directive-compliant incinerator at the abattoir in Malta. The EU Directive on incineration calls for standards covering both stationary and mobile units.
Acquiring planning permission for waste-to-energy plants is not easy. Three incinerators in the UK have been refused a permit. The refusals were based on public fears rather than on technical grounds. Environmental planner Keith Owen of SLR Consulting Ltd said that local authorities were now being asked to start specifying sites rather than leaving it up to the developers to do so.
Alternatives
SLR Consulting are also engaged in assisting 16 Welsh authorities after the Welsh Assembly set a waste reduction target at 10 per cent by 2010. While we battle with the choices ahead there is little mention of strategies to minimise waste being put in place in Malta.
At a glance the type of anaerobic digester already planned for use as part of the Sant'Antnin recycling plant is an option at the softer end of the scale, although the issue of airborne hazards is to be looked at. The UK Environment Agency asks for a risk assessment for an area of 250 metres radius where activities can produce bio-aerosols. But a digester on its own is not considered to adequately meet the demand for treatment of residual waste compared to other technologies.
At the other end of the scale incineration seems to be a rather extreme and controversial choice seen as a last resort after exhausting all other avenues. It is not easy to move beyond the perception that mass burn technology is the more hellish way out of a waste conundrum that will not go away.
In the circumstances do we have an alternative? Although environmentalists have long stated their preference for a more low tech option, the window for other waste solutions appears to be shrinking fast.
Yet a number of sources still maintain that mass burn is not the right solution, saying there is not enough waste on these small islands to feed an incinerator. Generally there is acknowledgement that some amount of residual waste will always remain requiring treatement before landfilling. But making incineration less costly through economies of scale would stall recycling efforts with greater quantities of waste needed to be burnt instead of recycled to make this technology more viable.
Meeting EU waste targets by 2010 without resorting to incineration could have been achieved on time if we had already made a start on supplementing bring-in collection sites with curbside schemes. This has not happened. Compost produced at Sant'Antnin will not be suitable for general use if separation of waste at source does not begin immediately. The sooner the better.