Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
mainly be seen in Sweden and Denmark. One thing that separates Denmark from Sweden is
the high proportion of total electricity production that comes from CHP plants; about 40% in
Denmark compared to around 8% in Sweden. The countries in CEE with a high amount of
DH and/or large market share (the Baltic countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,
and Romania) have not evolved their waste management sector and landfill is still the
dominating treatment method. Some countries have a large proportion of heat from waste
incineration in the DH systems, but the total amount of DH and/or market share is low, such
as France, Norway, Italy and Switzerland. For Germany, the data is contradictory. In Table 1,
it would appear that incineration is used mainly as a destruction method but as Figure 3
shows, some of the heat comes from waste. What can be said is that Germany has put a lot of
effort into developing their material recycling. In general for Table 1, it can be said that waste
treatment differs widely between countries and many still rely heavily on landfill.
Impact on Waste Incineration in Sweden of Waste Trade with Some
European Countries
Trading in waste in the European Union is regulated (European Council, 1993) and waste
is divided into different categories: green, yellow and red. Green waste includes e.g. wood
chips, logging residues, pellet, tall oil and sorted fractions of plastics, paper and rubber;
imports of waste in this category do not have to be registered. Examples of yellow waste are
chemically treated used woods, mixed fractions of used wood, paper, rubber and plastics, and
municipal solid waste. Red waste is e.g. waste containing or contaminated with
polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) or polychlorinated dibenzo-dioxin. The information on what
type of waste the categories include is taken from Ericsson and Nilsson (2004). The authors
estimated imports of green waste in 2000 at 760,000 tons. The Swedish Environment
Protection Agency must approve imports of yellow and red fractions. Imports of yellow waste
increased from 200,000 tons in 1999 to 430,000 tons in 2002 (Olofsson et al 2005). Olofsson
et al analyse which factors lie behind Swedish yellow waste imports, mainly intended for use
in waste incineration plants with energy recovery. Both factors in the waste management
system and the energy system are analysed. Five countries account for almost all imports to
Sweden: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, and Holland. The following factors may be
significant;
- The infrastructure in Sweden, with DH systems that can utilise the heat, thus raising
energy recovery significantly
- Energy taxation on fossil fuels is high
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in Sweden, and this increases the value of heat.
- Different types of bio fuel are the most common alternative for the base supply of heat.
This means that clean fractions of waste are suitable to combust in existing plants, since
the fuels are similar in composition.
- The quality of the imported waste has been higher than waste from Sweden, but this is
starting to level out due to stricter sorting requirements in Sweden.
- Taxes on waste and a ban on landfill are also driving factors. Norway and Denmark both
have taxes on waste incineration.
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The carbon dioxide tax is at present 0.1 €/kg.
