End of waste for just a small fraction of scrap iron.

Scrap metal first to cease being waste


The EU is working on rules to turn scrap iron into a product. Aluminium, copper, waste paper and glass will follow. Product status cuts out much bureaucracy, but does it bring the recycling society any closer? The strict rules mean that just a small percentage of the waste stream is eligible. Moreover, product status brings with it a new hurdle: REACH.

By Harry Perrée

The first consignment of scrap iron from the European Union to achieve ‘end-of-waste’ status next year will not suddenly follow a different route to the market. Whether it is classified as waste or not, the first port of call for scrap metal is the steel-melting furnace. What will change is the administrative rigmarole. At the moment, the metal industry has to comply with strict waste regulations. That will no longer be necessary when scrap metal is the first category of waste to secure end-of-waste status. From next year the same will apply to scrap aluminium.

The amount of iron and aluminium scrap that will be eligible for end-of-waste status is still shrouded in mystery. According to the current proposals by the European Commission, the contaminant content of scrap iron may not exceed two per cent and of scrap aluminium five per cent. Moreover, the scrap must be free of oil and hazardous substances, and must not be radioactive. ‘That will have to be determined by the waste companies’ quality management systems,’ explains Andreas Versmann, a policy officer at the European Commission. The Dutch Waste Management Association fears that these stringent criteria will mean that no more than ten per cent of scrap iron will make the ‘end-of-waste’ category. This falls short of generating the desired recycling boost, the aim of the new legislation. If the permissible level of contamination were to be raised from two to five per cent, the end-of-waste fraction would increase to thirty to forty per cent. Versmann estimates that under the current contamination percentage limit the eligible fraction would be higher. He expects that a third of all scrap iron will meet the quality criteria for end-of-waste, but adds that it is uncertain whether that percentage will actually be achieved. ‘It depends on whether traders accept and apply the criteria. Only then will end-of-waste become a reality.’ The EU civil servant is convinced that companies will embrace the criteria. ‘The criteria have been developed in consultation with recyclers and the metal industry that uses the scrap. Our goal was to develop workable proposals. Over the next few years we will be monitoring how much scrap achieves end-of-waste status.’ The European waste companies, represented by FEAD, have not yet decided whether or not they are satisfied with the Commission’s proposals. ‘We have to hold internal discussions on the matter,’ says FEAD policy officer René Schroeder.

Harmonisation
Waste company Shanks is adopting a wait and see attitude. ‘As a recycling company we are not involved in the metal trade. As far as we are concerned, nothing has changed,’ concludes Jan Thewissen, occupational health, safety and environment coordinator at Shanks. However, he does anticipate a freer trade as a result of the elimination of the waste regulations. ‘That will have a positive effect on the price, making it easier to recover the costs of acquiring and processing the scrap.’

Ferrous metal and aluminium are the first on the list of waste streams to break free of the waste legislation straitjacket in the coming years. From this summer, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre will be issuing reports on possible end-of-waste criteria for paper, copper and glass. The plan is for these reports to be translated into legislation six to eight months later. The next in line will then be plastic and compost. Thewissen: ‘Once the criteria have been drawn up, we will look into what we have to do to secure end-of-waste status. If it turns out to be worth the effort, that’s what we’ll do.’

Until European regulations have been adopted, the member states are free to designate end-of-waste streams in their own countries. National governments have to notify these to the Commission, which will assess whether the decision complies with European legislation. Such initiatives have a disruptive effect on the European recycling market. Versmann: ‘In one country compost is classified as a waste, but in another it can be used as an end-of-waste product, whereas an important goal of end-of-waste is to ensure harmonisation and a level playing field.’ That is Thewissen’s fervent hope. To illustrate, he gives a concrete example. Shanks exports waste wood chips for use in the chipboard industry. The Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment has designated this waste stream as end-of-waste. But not all countries agree with this. ‘The same wood chips go to Germany as a product, but to Belgium as waste,’ says Thewissen. In his opinion the regulatory regime could be relaxed somewhat. For instance, he has heard that scrap metal must not contain any plastic waste. ‘This could lead to harmful emissions from PVC during the smelting process. I understand this, but you do wonder whether it is possible to remove all the plastic fragments. We carry out many quality controls to ensure we obtain a good quality final product that we can sell. It would be regrettable if market entry was blocked by the legislation.’

REACH
Once the hurdle of end-of-waste has been successfully negotiated, a second hurdle awaits: REACH. As soon as end-of-waste status relieves a waste stream of the burden of the waste regulation regime, it can become subject to REACH. This obliges companies that market products and substances in Europe to register them and declare their chemical properties in detail. This can be an onerous task for waste companies; waste streams are almost by definition mixed, impure and sometimes of uncertain provenance. How is Shanks going to deal with this? ‘A new guidance document has just come out,’ says Thewissen. ‘We have to see whether we can demonstrate ‘sameness’ with the primary products.’ This is because REACH contains a get-out clause: you do not have to register a product stream if it has already been registered by another party. And because most end-of-waste streams are similar to raw materials from primary production processes, waste companies simply have to wait until the primary producers have registered their substances. A lucky break for waste companies. Or is it? ‘The problem is, REACH sets a whole range of deadlines, but for several streams we still know little of relevance for end-of-waste. This can put us in an awkward position,’ concludes Thewissen. ‘Some aspects of REACH remain unclear,’ agrees FEAD’s Schroeder. ‘The burden on recyclers should be limited. If you can demonstrate sameness, you do not have to register the substance. But to establish sameness, you need access to the data on products manufactured in the primary process. It is important that access to these data is guaranteed.’ This will become clear only after November, when the next REACH registration deadline expires. FEAD fears that if REACH throws up new obstacles, it will make things difficult and very expensive for waste companies.

Market potential

End-of-waste streams and there percentage of total volume.
Scrap metal = 10%,
Scrap metal with 5% contamination instead of 2% = 30–40%
Aluminium scrap (if other metals are not included as contaminants)= 40%
Copper = 14–40%
Paper = 60%
Glass (based on separately collected material)= 90%

Estimates by European experts of the percentage of waste streams that are eligible for end-of-waste. The estimates were made on the basis of the current proposal by the European Commission.

EPA Challenges Colleges To Recycle At Football Games

Washington,DC - As part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2010 Game Day Challenge, colleges across the country will compete to see who can reduce, reuse, and recycle the most waste. Registration for the competition is now open and the winning colleges will be announced in November.

Any college or university in the U.S. with a football team can compete, and register through September 30. The challenge is for schools to design a waste reduction plan for one home football game in October and measure the results. Schools can collect common materials for recycling including paper, beverage containers, cardboard, and food to be donated and composted. The amount of waste generated and recycled will determine which school is the greenest.

Schools can win in several categories:

least amount of waste generated per attendee

• greatest greenhouse gas reductions
• highest recycling rate
• highest organics reduction rate (i.e., food donation and composting)
• highest combined recycling and composting rate.

Winners will be publicized on EPA's website.

The competition is sponsored by EPA's WasteWise program, a voluntary program through which organizations eliminate costly municipal solid waste and select industrial wastes, benefiting their bottom line and the environment. Launched in 1994, the program has more than 2,700 members.

To register for the Game Day Challenge: https://my.re-trac.com/gameday

More information on the Game Day Challenge: http://epa.gov/gameday/

More information on WasteWise program:
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/partnerships/wastewise/index.htm

SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Making Your Own Solar Panel or Wind Turbine

A solar cell is a device for converting energy from the sun into electricity.

The high-efficiency solar cells you can buy at Radio Shack and other stores are made from highly processed silicon, and require huge factories, high temperatures, vacuum equipment, and lots of money.

If we are willing to sacrifice efficiency for the ability to make our own solar cells in the kitchen out of materials from the neighborhood hardware store, we can demonstrate a working solar cell in about an hour.

Our solar cell is made from cuprous oxide instead of silicon. Cuprous oxide is one of the first materials known to display the photoelectric effect, in which light causes electricity to flow in a material.

Thinking about how to explain the photoelectric effect is what led Albert Einstein to the Nobel prize for physics, and to the theory of relativity.

You can now make solar panels at home. You have probably read about it or seen it on TV. Click Here for a guide that will help you build your own solar panel.

Wind power is a great backup for when you have long periods of cloudy days. So, it makes sense to build a wind turbine too. Click here for Wind Turbine Info.

Trash-burning power plant in Fairfield fires debate

A New York company's proposal to bring 200 badly needed "green jobs" to Baltimore by building a "renewable-energy" plant in the Fairfield area is drawing heat from — of all people — environmentalists.

That's because the 120-megawatt power plant planned by Energy Answers International of Albany would burn shredded municipal waste, tire chips, auto parts and demolition debris for fuel. Company officials argue the nearly $1 billion project will generate electricity and steam from waste that otherwise would fill up landfills. And it would be one of the cleanest facilities of its type in the nation, they say, with state-of-the-art pollution controls.

But activists argue the facility is still a glorified trash incinerator that would discourage recycling and spew hazardous pollutants into the nearby Brooklyn and Curtis Bay neighborhoods, which are already afflicted with some of the least healthy air in the state because of all the industry in the area. At least one environmental group has threatened to sue if the project gets a green light.

Is this what Curtis Bay is going to be known for?" Dr. Gwen DuBois, a member of the Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, asked at a public hearing on the project in late May. "We want good union jobs, but this is not green."

The project, to be financed in part by up to $300 million in federal stimulus funds, has won the backing of union leaders eager for the hundreds of jobs the company says the facility will create. It's also been endorsed by usually industry-wary community groups, wooed by the developer's promise of scholarships and up to $100,000 a year for improvements in neighborhoods long suffering from neglect and joblessness.

The proposed plant is being reviewed by the state Public Service Commission, which must approve any facility that would generate power to the electric grid. The commission has held a pair of hearings on the project and plans another one June 28 to review the facility's air-quality impacts.

"This is a very positive economic and environmental project," Patrick Mahoney, Energy Answers president, said at the hearing in Curtis Bay. He argued it would keep thousands of tons of waste out of landfills, reduce climate-warming greenhouse gases, help the state generate more of its power from renewable sources and produce environmentally friendly jobs.

 
 
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun

Bio-Bug: Car run on human waste is launched

A car that runs on methane gas produced by human waste has been launched and its makers claim drivers cannot tell the difference.

The Bio-Bug has been converted by a team of British engineers to be powered by biogas, which is produced from human waste at sewage works across the country.

They believe the car is a viable alternative to electric vehicles.

Excrement flushed down the lavatories of just 70 homes is enough to power the car for 10,000 miles - the equivalent of one average motoring year. This conversion technology has been used in the past but the Bio-Bug is Britain's first car to run on methane gas without its performance being reduced. It can power a conventional two litre VW Beetle convertible to 114mph. Mohammed Saddiq, of sustainable energy firm GENeco, which developed the prototype, claimed that drivers "won't know the difference". He said: "Previously the gas hasn't been clean enough to fuel motor vehicles without it affecting performance. "However, through using the latest technology our Bio-Bug drives like any conventional car and what's more it uses sustainable fuel."If you were to drive the car you wouldn't know it was powered by biogas as it performs just like any conventional car. It is probably the most sustainable car around."

The Bio-Bug is a conventional 2 litre VW Beetle convertible, which has been modified to run on both conventional fuel and compressed methane gas. The car is started using unleaded petrol but automatically switches to methane when the engine is "up to temperature". If the methane tank runs out the Bio-Bug reverts back to petrol. Around 18 million cubic metres of biogas is produced from human waste every year at Wessex Water's sewage treatment works in Avonmouth, Bristol.

The gas is generated through anaerobic digestion - where bugs which are starved of oxygen break down biodegradable material to produce methane. However, before the gas can be used to power vehicles it must undergo "biogas upgrading" where carbon dioxide is removed to improve performance.

The Bio-Bug does 5.3 miles per cubic metre of biogas, which means that just one sewage works could power 95,400,000 miles per year saving 19,000 tonnes of CO2. Lord Rupert Redesdale, chairman of The Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, believes that the Bio-Bug could prove to be the future of green motoring. He said: "This is a very exciting and forward-thinking project demonstrating the myriad benefits of anaerobic digestion. "Biomethane cars could be just as important as electric cars, and the water regulator Ofwat should promote the generation of as much biogas as possible through sewage works in the fight against climate change."

GENeco, which is a sustainable energy company owned by Wessex Water, plans to convert its fleet of vehicles if the Bio-Bug trial proves to be successful. The Bio-Bug emits three tonnes of carbon dioxide in an average year whilst a conventional vehicle emits 3.5 tonnes. However, the Bio-Bug is carbon neutral because all of its CO2 would have been released into the atmosphere anyway in the form of methane gas.

Conventional vehicles use fossil fuels, a non-renewable, finite source of energy, and the CO2 they emit would not otherwise have been released into the atmosphere.

Why burn it when it might better to bury it!

When it comes to using plant waste to mitigate climate change, most people think of turning it into ethanol or biodiesel for use as a fuel. But a new study suggests we may have more to gain by converting plant material into biochar, a type of charcoal, and burying it in farmers' fields.

Biochar is produced by heating plant waste in an oxygen-free environment, a process known as pyrolysis. This also yields syngas – a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen – plus a small amount of oil. Both can be burned as fuels.

Typically, up to 60 per cent of the plant's carbon ends up as biochar. When buried, this can lock the carbon away for thousands of years if necessary. The pyrolysis itself releases no carbon dioxide into the air.

Burning issue


The new study was the work of James Amonette at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, and colleagues. It centres on a computer model they developed to compare the carbon emissions that would be saved by converting the world's available supplies of plant waste into either biofuel or biochar.

The model showed that converting all the world's available plant waste into biofuels would cut carbon emissions by 10 per cent from today's levels. Turning it into biochar could cut emissions by up to 12 per cent – or 1.8 gigatonnes of the 15.4 gigatonnes emitted each year (Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1053).

Carbon storage


However, the relative benefits of biochar and biofuel will vary from region to region. "It depends on the fertility of the soil in the region where you are producing the biochar, and whether you are offsetting coal or some other form of energy," Amonette says.

In regions with highly fertile soil and a high proportion of coal in their energy-generation mix, such as the American Midwest, Amonette says it may be better to convert all the available plant waste into biofuel. "But in South America, Africa, south-eastern parts of the US and most of the rest of the world on average, you're better off going with char."

Burying biochar also increases soil fertility. The Biochar Fund, based in Heverlee, Belgium, is carrying out trials of biochar with rural communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and southern Cameroon to improve the fertility of soil in these regions.

Midway through the second growing seasons in Cameroon with biochar in the soil, average maize yields have increased from 1.7 tonnes per hectare to 2.5 tonnes per hectare. "In many cases, we saw a spectacular boost in both biomass and grain yield because of the addition of biochar; these extremes are generally found on the poorest soils," says Laurens Rademakers, Biochar Fund's managing director.

Biochar increases the pH of acidic soil, and helps it to retain nutrients such as ammonium, calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. Some biochars are also highly porous, allowing them to trap moisture and improve the water retention of soils in dry regions, says Amonette.

by Helen Knight

Waste Management CEO Seeks Technology to Turn Trash into a Commodity

Although Waste Management’s power plant on the Hudson River burns all unrecyclable trash to power a 60-megawatt generator that produces electricity, chief executive David Steiner is on a quest to find the right technology that will turn garbage into a commodity such as ethanol, diesel, gasoline, natural gas or chemicals, reports Forbes.

Steiner told Forbes he wants to own the conversion technology, and in support of his goal has made four investments in startups and joint ventures over the past year that range from developing a technology to speed up the composting process to using heat and chemicals to turn trash into ethanol.

As an example, Waste Management invested in Harvest Power, which aims to cut composting time in half from three to four months to six to eight weeks. The company sells the compost to plant growers.

Harvest chief executive Paul Sellew told Forbes that 98 percent of the food waste goes into landfills. The company is also developing an anaerobic digester and small gasifier that will turn woody waste into a natural gas.

In March, S4 Energy Solutions, a joint venture formed by Waste Management and InEnTec, announced it will build a plasma gasification facility at Waste Management’s Columbia Ridge Landfill in Arlington, Ore., that will convert municipal solid waste into clean fuels and renewable energy.

The $15.5 million joint venture between The Linde Group and Waste Management to build a plant to convert landfill gas into biogas started production last year, and is powering 300 of Waste Management’s nearly 500 natural gas-powered waste and recycling collection trucks.

While one financial analyst says Waste Management’s venture capital bids are impacting its bottom line, Steiner told Forbes that investing in companies like Harvest Power positions the company as a ‘green’ company and attracts investors with the potential for higher growth.

According to Forbes, in 2009, the company earned $994 million on $11.8 billion in revenue, while investments in these energy projects average about $8 million.

Elsewhere, the Red Energy Group in Cape Coral, Florida, says it has a process that will turn trash into synthetic fuel, reports Wink News.

Red Energy Group says its technology is based on processes used in Europe, which will condense the trash into odor-free pellets, then convert it to fuel, without pollution, according to the newspaper. The company’s engineers says it can save the city money and reduce its waste while providing alternative fuel at a discounted price to the city.

The company wants to build a facility in the northeast Cape that would have the capacity to turn one ton of garbage into 1,100 gallons of diesel fuel, and save the city $400,000 annually in fuel costs, reports ABC-7.com.