Recycling 101: Energy Recovery Technologies

Top 3 Takeaways

• 1

  There are some items that can’t be recycled using existing technology.

• 2

  We can still convert these items into energy using several different energy recovery processes.

• 3

  Using plastics for energy recovery would hugely reduce the amount of waste going to the landfill.

There are several types of energy recovery that are being explored today:

• 1

  Pyrolysis, sometimes called “plastics to fuel,” turns non-recycled plastics from municipal solid waste (garbage) into a synthetic crude oil that can be refined into diesel fuel, gasoline, heating oil or waxes.
  
  Using pyrolysis to convert non-recycled plastics into ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 14% and water consumption by 58%, and it saves up to 96% in traditional energy use as opposed to ULSD from conventional crude oil.

• 2

  Thermal treatment, sometimes called "waste to energy," is the combustion of various non-recycled materials from the municipal solid waste stream (garbage) to produce steam for electric power generation.

• 3

  Gasification turns non-recycled materials from municipal solid waste (garbage) into a synthesis gas, or “syngas,” which can be used for electric power generation or converted into fuel or chemical feedstocks, such as ethanol and methanol, some of which can also be used to make new plastics that go into consumer products.

• 4

  Refuse-derived fuel (RDF), sometimes called “engineered fuel,” is a solid fuel derived from non-recycled materials in municipal solid waste (garbage). Refuse-derived fuel can be used for electric power generation and heavy industry applications, such as powering cement kilns.

Energy Recovery in Action

The city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, was the first in the world to implement a municipal waste-to-biofuels energy recovery program. The city, province and private company Enerkem collaborated to build a Waste to Biofuels and Chemicals Facility. It’s estimated that the facility is helping to divert 90% of the city's waste from landfills.