Executive Summary

The following is the Executive Summary as it appears in the Juniper report. Please note that this is Juniper copyright. If you wish to copy this or reproduce it in whole or in part, you must quote Juniper as the author and owner of this information.
Published by:ection	Juniper Consultancy Services Ltd. March 2005, Version 1.0
Principal Authors:	Egan Archer , BEng, MSc, PhD, AMIChemE Adam Baddeley , MSc; Alex Klein , BSc, MSc; Joe Schwager , BA, MICM, AMIMC, MCIWM; Kevin Whiting , BEng, PhD, CEng, FIChemE.

Acknowledgement:

This project was funded by UK landfill tax credits provided by Sita Environmental Trust (SET) with additional funding from ASSURRE (The Association for the Sustainable Use and Recovery of Resources in Europe ) to each of whom we wish to express our appreciation.

We also wish to thank Dr Gev Eduljee of Sita, Dr Peter White of ASSURRE, Stuart Reynolds of Norfolk Environmental Waste Services and Andy Saunders of SET, who formed a Technical Advisory Committee.  Their insight and many helpful comments were invaluable.

We wish to place on record our gratitude to the many process developers, site operators and others who provided information for the preparation of this report.  In particular we are grateful to the many individuals who facilitated our visits to reference plants to conduct site appraisals.

Many process, product, system and company names cited throughout the text are registered marks.  In the interests of legibility, each occurrence is not followed by ©, ® or ™. Nevertheless, we wish to acknowledge the rights of the owners of such marks, and the copyright for figures and pictures used in this report.

Copyright Statement

© Juniper Consultancy Services Ltd. 2005. All rights reserved.

This report may not be copied or given, lent or resold, in part or in whole, to any third party without written permission.  Specific additional provisions apply to use of the electronic version of this report. We will also always try and meet reasonable requests from those who wish to quote selectively from the data and analysis contained herein in support of their own technical publications.  We ask that you agree the basis of such usage with us in advance and that you always reference the source of the material.

Important Note

The inclusion of a supplier or proprietary process in this report does not constitute a recommendation as to its performance or suitability.  Equally, non-inclusion does not imply that that process is not suitable for certain applications.

We welcome information to assist with the preparation of any future editions of this report. The opinions contained herein are offered to the reader as one viewpoint in the continuing debate about how MBT can contribute to a modern integrated waste management system.  They are based upon the information that was available to us at the time of publication – and may subsequently change.

A wide ranging study of this type may contain inaccuracies and non-current information - for which we apologise in advance. We are always pleased to receive updated information or corrections about any of the processes reviewed for possible inclusion in future editions of the report.

This Review has been carried out on a completely independent basis. No payment has been or will be accepted from any process company for inclusion of any information or commentary contained herein.  As an analyst active in this field, Juniper also provides confidential consulting services to many companies involved in this sector.  We have procedures in place to avoid conflicts of interest, to protect confidential data and to provide 3rd parties with dispassionate, independent advice.

Disclaimer

This report has been prepared by Juniper with all reasonable skill, care and diligence within the Terms of the contract with the client, incorporating our Terms and Conditions of Business.  We disclaim any responsibility of whatsoever nature to third parties to whom this report, or any part thereof, is made known.  Any such party interprets or relies on the report at their own risk.

Executive Summary

The objectives of this report are:

• to provide a comprehensive review of the status of Mechanical-Biological-Treatment ( MBT );
• to assess the capabilities and limitations of the many variants of this concept;
• to analyse the suitability of such systems for managing the residual fraction of household waste;
• to report on the implications for UK Local Authorities’ waste strategies.

This one-year appraisal was funded by landfill tax credits disbursed by the SITA Environmental Trust and co-funded by ASSURRE.  We are grateful for their support.

Our review has concluded that MBT has the potential to be an attractive option, despite a number of issues identified in the report.

MBT is not a single concept but, instead, is a family of possible process elements that can be combined in many different ways.  The study has shown that the performance of these different configurations varies very widely and each has a complex mix of advantages and disadvantages.  We have concluded that no one approach is a ‘best solution’ but, rather, that some types of system will be unsuitable for a particular project, while others can be a very appropriate option.

MBT partially processes mixed household waste, by mechanically removing some parts of the waste and by biologically treating others, so that the residual fraction is smaller, more stable and more suitable for a number of possible uses.

The main challenge associated with MBT is finding viable uses for the solid output from the process and securing long-term off-take contracts.  For this reason, a significant part of the study focused upon assessing how practical the different options were.  In this context we reviewed the actual situation at key reference plants across Europe .  Our main conclusions are:

• The output will not find significant usage as a compost in the UK .  There are two main reasons for this.  It will not meet the UK industry’s voluntary quality standard and, hence, users will be reluctant to embrace it.  There will be increasing amounts of compost produced from garden waste, which will compete out the less attractive mixed waste composts produced by some types of MBT process.  However, our analysis concludes that there will be a significant amount of usage of the compost-like output (CLO) in other countries as a soil improver.
• The study also concluded that the challenges associated with using the output as a fuel are significant – in particular, we identified numerous technical issues associated with such applications.  Actual usage in Continental Europe is much smaller than is thought.  Unless government policy changes significantly, we expect very little of this product will be used as a co-fuel in power plants.
• Our analysis is somewhat more positive with respect to use in cement kilns, but our investigations indicate that cement companies will often prefer other types of waste derived fuel.  We have concluded that, because of this competition from other substitute fuels and the limited overall capacity within the UK cement industry, other outlets will also be needed.
• We believe that the most practical of these is use as ‘daily cover’ on landfill sites because the market risk, technology challenges and economic uncertainties associated with this application are much lower than other end-uses.  For this reason we expect waste management companies to favour it, but, since such use will adversely affect the reported landfill diversion performance of the MBT facility, it is less attractive for Waste Disposal Authorities.  Our analysis indicates that the capacity of this outlet is somewhat greater than previously thought. 
• Where such usage is not possible (for example, in those regions with few active landfill sites) our research has shown that a number of specific land remediation and landscaping applications could absorb large quantities.  This, combined with selective land-spreading opportunities (on verges and in forestry, for example) can provide more than sufficient viable outlets.  We therefore do not believe, as some have stated, that it is impossible to find sufficient outlets for all of the output if the UK were to embrace MBT as its primary method of processing the residual fraction of household waste.  However, the policy framework that affects the viability of such applications has significant uncertainties today at both EU and national level.  As long as these remain, it may be difficult to finalise waste management contracts that rely on such applications.  It should also be noted that it is likely that the operator of the MBT plant may have to pay a fee for access to the end-use, similar to that paid by water utilities for land-spreading of sewage sludge.  Our analysis of the economics indicates that this could be economically attractive for all parties, since it would avoid disposal costs.
• The concept of bio-stabilising the material and depositing it within a landfill has been promoted by NGOs and others.  This approach is being increasingly adopted on the Continent but our analysis has concluded that this option is economically unattractive within a UK context.  There are also arguments against such an approach on sustainability grounds.  In many parts of the UK , the shortage of void space also predicates against this option.

We have concluded that, in the current policy framework, there are real issues associated with the two most frequently cited applications: use as a fuel in power stations; and use as a compost.  A number of other options have been identified which seem more promising but which need further more detailed evaluation.  In particular, there are regulatory and policy aspects that require more certainty before the industry is likely to be confident that viable low-risk outlets for the output are available.

While MBT has only recently attracted interest within the UK , it is not new: MBT systems have been in operation elsewhere for more than ten years.

One third of the technologies reviewed originate from Germany , which is not surprising considering this is where much of the historical development of MBT took place in the context of meeting constraints on landfilling and a desire, in certain States, to avoid the use of incineration. 

Having conducted site appraisals of 28 facilities in 8 different countries, we believe that MBT should be regarded as a proven concept.  Between them the 27 companies included in this review have 80 operational reference facilities that have a combined treatment capacity of more than 8.5 million tonnes per year[1].  Two-thirds of the world’s combined operating capacity has been installed in Germany , Italy and Spain .

However, because of the numerous ways that MBT plants can be configured and the variety of uses for the output, there may be few directly applicable reference installations for a specific configuration that is of relevance to a particular project.

We have classified 12 of the 27 processes as ‘fully commercial’ with four others currently classed as ‘commercial’ (having only one operating reference facility).  The remainder are at varying stages of development.  Three of the companies reviewed are developing MBT processes in the UK : their demonstrated commercial experience is, at the present time, less than many of their continental counterparts.

The capital and operating costs of MBT processes vary widely, because of the diversity of configurations.  Increasingly, fiscal and trading mechanisms are being used as tools to promote changes in environmental policy.  These so-called ‘market distorters’ (examples include landfill tax, ROCs, CCOs, LATS fines, LATS tradable credits and EU-ETS tradable allocations[2]) already play a bigger part than the underlying processing costs in determining the overall economics of MBT – and their importance is likely to increase.  Another big factor is whether the output from an MBT facility represents a source of income or a disposal cost.  Because these parameters have a significant and variable impact on the economics of specific configurations, the net gate fee for different approaches to MBT will vary markedly.  Critics of MBT have said that because it is only an intermediate treatment, the overall costs of an MBT led-solution will always be higher than alternatives.  Whilst this will often be the case, we do not think that it has to be in every case.  Our analysis indicates that careful design of a project to maximise favourable market distorters could result in projects being viable with little or no gate fee component to their economics.

When one takes into account the complex mix of technical, commercial and policy factors that determine the relative attractiveness of different MBT approaches, our study indicates that MBT configurations that focus on biogas production are often more attractive than three other options that have received more attention so far: bio-drying to produce an SRF, making a bio-stabilised residue that goes to landfill and producing a bio-treated output that is marketed as a compost.  Other options that we believe merit more consideration include making a land remediation material using a ‘fast composting’ type of MBT process and coupling MBT to gasification.  In this latter case, using a closely coupled gasification process increases revenues and removes the market risk associated with the output.  The technology risk is greater than with many other options but is less than with gasifying MSW directly.

Another major part of our study has been to analyse the performance of MBT against government recycling and diversion targets.

With regard to recycling, MBT only provides a modest increase in the amount of dry recyclables but our analysis indicates that some, but not all, MBT configurations could provide high levels of performance against the key BVPI targets (BV82a & BV82b)