Business

Energy-from-Waste is a Win-Win for People and the Environment

Instead of just forgetting about their trash when they leave it at the curb, people increasingly are recognizing that municipal solid waste is a valuable resource. For more than 25 years, Covanta Energy has viewed waste as an important resource not to be thrown away. Waste materials have a tremendous amount of potential energy. Waste materials in landfills release significant amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Recycling and Energy-from-Waste (EfW) together, as part of an integrated waste management approach, make the best use of this resource, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions while turning waste into steam to heat our homes and businesses and electricity to power our cities and towns.

Every day, EfW (also known as Waste-to-Energy) facilities offset one ton of greenhouse gas emissions for every ton of trash they process. Yearly, the industry’s 87 facilities in the U.S. offset nearly 30 millions tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Covanta Energy, a leader in the EfW industry, has offset more than 250 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions processing waste into clean renewable energy. This offset is the beneficial equivalent of planting six billion trees, saving thousands of acres from being turned into landfills, or powering 11 million homes for a year. But that is just part of the story. Covanta has also recycled approximately five million tons of metal—enough to build 60 Golden Gate Bridges.

Recycling saves energy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by using recovered materials instead of raw materials when producing products. For example, recycling an aluminum can saves energy from ore mining and, more importantly, from aluminum smelting, an extremely energy intensive process. For that waste destined for landfills, EfW saves energy by transforming the potential energy of municipal solid waste (MSW) into useful energy in the form of electricity or steam and by recovering additional ferrous and nonferrous metal for recycling. In contrast, landfills without landfill gas projects act as a net energy sink. These systems do recover some energy, but only a fraction of that saved through recycling or EfW.

Increasingly, others are looking at tapping into waste as a resource for generating and saving energy too. This has resulted in a significant shift in the way people view municipal solid waste. The former U.S. EPA Office of Solid Waste is now the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. Already, 15 states currently include EfW in their Renewable Portfolio Standards. EfW is also defined as renewable by 25 states, the District of Columbia, and by both the Federal government and the European Union.

The European Union, through a series of directives and other initiatives, has already taken significant steps toward more sustainable waste management. The EU Waste Hierarchy prioritizes waste reduction, reuse, and recycling and recognizes the benefits of EfW over landfilling. Many EU member states have achieved high levels of recycling and EfW to the point where the European Environmental Agency has recognized the role recycling and EfW have played in lower GHG emissions from waste management.

Much more, however, could be done to generate clean renewable energy from waste domestically. If the U.S. were to adopt the EU model of waste management with a goal of 65% recycling, 23% EfW and 12% landfilling, we could save over 70,000 MW of energy, equivalent to the energy in over 10% of our annual oil imports or enough to meet the energy needs of nearly 18 million households.

These benefits underscore the significant role EfW can play in a renewable energy future. A proven technology, EfW continues to hold great promise now and in the future, offering communities the most sustainable solution for processing residual waste left after recycling efforts.

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