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How does the waste system work in these countries?
The current waste system in emerging and developing countries is dominated by mismanaged waste and open dumping. Below is a waste flow diagram of Bali, Indonesia, which is typical for the situation in these economies*. It shows how most waste ends up in (unmanaged) landfills and nature, while only 5-10% is being recycled
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*Though exact percentages in these regions (South and South-East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America) will vary case by case, the overall picture is similar. Collection ranges vary more, but recycled vs. landfilled/mismanaged not much.
How to change this situation?
Let's first examine a crucial element in waste management: Waste hierarchy
Reducing and Reusing materials is needed to close the tap, but waste flows are expected to continue growing even in the most positive scenarios.
At the top, waste hierarchy emphasises to first reduce our waste and reuse as much as possible. This change is absolutely needed but also difficult, as it requires a systemic and behaviour change. Therefore, waste is expected to grow with 30-100% until 2050, or in the most positive circular scenario, stay at 70% of current levels (source: ISWA/UNEP Global Waste Management Outlook 2024). So we have to come up with realistic solutions to deal with the waste.
Recycling and source segregation is crucial to transition to a circular system, but huge streams of mixed waste are expected for the foreseeable future.
So let’s look at the top stream of the waste flow diagram: Recycling
High-value streams like hard plastics, metals and clean paper find their way through the hands of the (mostly informal) recycling sector. This system can be scaled up, as the informal network does not cover all locations and streams. But it will always face limitations in efficiency due to the absence of economies of scale (small vehicles, small sorting facilities and low mechanisation) and concentrate only on streams that have enough value to be dealt with in this way. Additionally, the collection and treatment of organic waste stream (60-70% of waste in these economies), often has an extremely low or negative business case, making it generally unappealing to the recycling sector.
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The most important way to increase recycling is economic incentives, like higher prices for materials, Extended Producers’ Responsibility/Plastic Credits or higher fees for landfilling of waste, potentially the most effective mechanism by giving a negative cost to streams which are not being recycled. These economic incentives are increasing, but only slowly. A solution to the diseconomies of scale is implementing source segregation (retaining the value of the materials and enabling efficiencies in sorting and processing) and more efficient waste collection systems (which we will cover in a later article).
However, in our experience, both source segregation and improving waste collection systems require a lot of time and effort in behaviour change and a strong mandate from local governments - both of which are not easily available in these economies.
We believe these developments should continue. But we also think the current ±5-10% rate of recycling would not become the majority overnight: ISWA/UNEP also predict only 30-37% recycling across their scenarios by 2050. There will still be a significant stream of mixed waste remaining. For example, in Northwest Europe where recycling systems are well established, the mixed waste stream is still 30-50% (Eurostat 2020). The reason is that source segregation is not always easy or possible, mandating it is difficult and good post-sorting mechanisms are becoming more attractive.
In the meantime, there are still truckloads of waste flowing to landfills, nature and oceans.
How to manage the transition until a circular system is in place?
Resource recovery from mixed waste can be a solution to reduce waste to (badly managed) landfills.
Back to the waste hierarchy. The next step, energy recovery is a debated topic, because it is technically not an ideal solution to burn waste as it creates contaminated flue gases. Cases of low-cost incinerators built in the Global South causing severe toxic emissions stress the importance of high-quality flue gas cleaning systems.
But, it is positioned higher in the waste hierarchy for a reason, as it does replace fossil fuels used for the production of energy or essential products like cement and paper. Especially if you compare it with usually badly managed landfills in the Global South, which are:
- Not equipped with liners, to prevent contaminated leachate entering the soil
- Not capped, to prevent methane emissions, a greenhouse gas with 80x more warming effect than CO2 in the first 20 years of its lifespan (Source: Delterra)
- Lacking proper management to prevent regular landfill fires and -slides, causing harm to the surrounding communities
Next to well-known large-scale solutions like scientific landfills and waste to energy plants (mostly suitable for volumes higher than ~750 tpd), there's another solution. Mixed waste upto ~1500 tpd can be processed into Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF) / Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) (combustible waste which is currently not technically or economically recyclable) and utilised at the existing incineration capacity of cement factories. These factories are going to remain in place for the foreseeable future and hence RDF/SRF provide a better alternative to burning of coal. Of course they should take strict pollution control measures. This approach not only reduces their CO2 emissions but also prevents methane emissions at landfills.
Taking a step further we can even maximise recovery from mixed municipal waste with more advanced processing facilities, which can sort the waste into:
- Recyclables
- RDF/SRF
- Compost
- Inert material as landfill cover
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But this can only be done at scale, as it requires investment into more advanced mechanisation of sorting and processing of the waste. It will also require a contribution to the Opex, as the revenues from materials, RDF and (optional) EPR and plastic/carbon credits are not enough to cover the processing costs.
In a next article, we will elaborate on a new, first-of-its kind design we are planning to implement in Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is a fit-for-purpose solution developed with the best expertise from Europe and the Global South, which is expected to reduce waste to landfill with ±80-85%.
How about the mismanaged waste stream?
Large-scale mixed waste processing is expected to also indirectly reduce the mismanaged stream.
We believe that a proper solution for processing mixed waste at scale will also indirectly unlock a solution for the mismanaged waste stream. Why? Local governments currently have two options to deal with their waste: collect, or not collect.
Without a proper outlet to process the collected waste, the added value of collection is relatively low. The problem and eyesore of landfills for Municipal officers is similar or potentially even more than the distributed issues of waste burning or leakage, since the landfills are more visible and under direct control of the government. Why spend a lot of effort and resources in expanding the collection network, if the problem is then moved to a large piled up problem in full sight? This might sound cynical, but is not even that difficult to understand from the perspective of the municipal officers in charge.
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