The European Waste Management Association (FEAD) states that the waste management sector ‘is not [yet] at its full capacity of producing and saving energy’, and that it can play a ‘fundamental role’ in ending the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
The trade association’s statement followed the recent agreement made by EU Member States on 26 July, which set out a voluntary 15 per cent reduction of natural gas this winter, in an attempt to prepare the energy market for disruptions from Russia.
According to FEAD, the EU could meet its goals by utilising the waste sector, with ‘recycling and recovery operations [saving] material resources, energy and CO2 emissions by avoiding the extractions, processing and use of virgin raw materials and fossil fuels’.
The trade association also claims that waste incineration could assist the EU in its aims, alongside anaerobic digestion, which generates energy from ‘local, reliable, and secure sources’. Both of these could ‘diversify our energy supply’, FEAD says, especially with regards to district heating, cooling networks and to ‘accelerate the rollout’ of renewable energy.
FEAD has identified several ‘positive contributions’ that could make the waste management sector ‘eligible to any relevant regulatory tool’ and therefore need to be recognised. For example, it states that ‘Waste-to-Energy plants in Europe can currently supply 18 million inhabitants with electricity and 15.2 million inhabitants with heat’ and asserts that the plants’ output is about 50 per cent renewable.
The trade association also calls on the EU to recognise ‘energy recovery from selectively collected, residual, non-hazardous waste in the EU Taxonomy as an activity substantially contributing to (a transition to) circular economy’.
Alongside this, FEAD urges that the EU implement mesures that foster recovery and recycling markets – such as public support, mandatory recycled content targets in sectoral legislation, mandatory green punclic procurement criteria, financial incentives and EU end-of-waste criteria, when feasible, to facilitate exports of secondary raw materials from recycling inside and outside the EU.
FEAD’s statement also highlights the importance of preserving the status of biodegradable waste in the Renewable Energy Directive.
Peter Kurth, FEAD President, said: “The European waste management sector has a role to play in the decarbonisation of our society, avoiding the combustion of fossil fuels and the use of virgin raw materials; it has a role to play in the promotion of a circular economy, by producing secondary raw materials and safely treating non-recyclable waste; and it has a role to play in the energy independence of the EU, by providing energy from a local, reliable, and safe source.
“This essential role needs to be consistently recognised across EU legislation and its requirements clearly and realistically established with a holistic approach.”
Jack McQuibban, Cities and Communities Programme Coordinator at Zero Waste Europe, commented: "The current crisis has shone a light on our dependency on both fossil fuels and foreign actors. Replacing this dependency instead on energy from burning waste is morally wrong, incompatible with our climate goals and also ineffective as an energy strategy.
"Waste-to-energy plants are proven to be wasteful energy sources and create a lock-in effect for continuous waste generation. Instead, we should be using this opportunity to shift Europe towards an energy system based on renewables and an economy that doesn't generate waste."
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