Waste Treatment Infrastructure in North Rhine-Westphalia,
Germany
Sibylle Morstadt (1), Karl-Heinz Striegel (2),
(1) TAUW GmbH, Moers, (2) State Environmental Office/North Rhine-Westphalia, Essen, Germany
Summary
The description of the waste disposal and recovery infrastructure in the Federal State of
North Rhine-Westphalia / Germany (18 mn inhabitants = 530 inh./km²) sets an example of
a largely developed, highly differentiated and - to a large extent - privately organized
commercial and industrial waste management sector. For the turn of the year 2001/2002,
this infrastructure was the subject of the first of two status reports prepared by the State
Environmental Office by order of the State Ministry of the Environment. This is
·
the report on waste treatment plants in North Rhine-Westphalia.
With the publication of the Waste Disposal and Recovery Atlas in December 2001, the
State Environmental Office succeeded in representing the complete disposal and recovery
infrastructure of this highly industrialized and densely populated European region in a
detailed way and for the very first time. Meanwhile, the data sheets for all waste disposal
and recovery plants in North Rhine Westphalia as well as the text volume are available on
the homepages of the State Ministry of the Environment (www.munlv.nrw.de) and of the
State Environmental Office of NRW (www.lua.nrw.de).
1. Introduction, characteristics of waste management in North Rhine-Westphalia
For many decades, waste treatment and disposal infrastructure developed without strong
public incentives in North Rhine-Westphalia. Guided by Federal and European legal
framework only and orientated towards rough State planning directives for hazardous
waste, private operators took full responsibility and investment risk for appropriate waste
management facilities. Favorable for the development of such a broad waste treatment
infrastructure was the long industrial tradition of the chemical industry, steel production
and hard coal mining. During several decades, North Rhine-Westphalia generated 30 to
40 % of German hazardous waste.
These conditions led to an extreme variety of disposal and recycling activities, following all
ups and downs of economic frame conditions, public pressure and legal development.
While other German States decided to give State-owned monopolistic hazardous waste
management and operation a try, North Rhine-Westphalia continued to be an open
market for private engagement in waste management infrastructure.
Planning, supervision and monitoring of such a wide range of participants on the wastehandling market are only possible with data based registers which are processed and
administrated by State waste management boards. This waste disposal and recycling
register has been existing and growing in number, complexity and diversification for 15
years now.
With the Disposal and Recovery Atlas NRW published in December 2001, and the
additional landfill report to be published soon, the State Environmental Office and the
Ministry of the Environment of North Rhine Westphalia are presenting – for the first time
and up to now unique in Germany – the complete disposal and recovery infrastructure of
an economically important European region. This presentation gives rise to more founded
research on the environmental impact of waste industry and on their efficiency in terms of
elimination and isolation of hazardous substances.
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
1
2.
Disposal and recovery options, an overview of waste treatment plants in
operation in North Rhine-Westphalia
ENADA, the waste disposal and recovery register currently identifies 3090 recycling and
disposal plants in operation (Appendix 1, status June 2000). The disposal and recovery
infrastructure of North Rhine-Westphalia consists of the following types of recycling and
disposal plants:
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
Biological treatment plants for composting and anaerobic digestion above all of
biowaste and green waste
Biological treatment plants for contaminated soils
Chemical-physical treatment plants of mainly fluid and pasty hazardous waste
Mechanical re-processing and screening plants, mainly for domestic and
commercial waste
Thermal waste treatment plants, incinerators for domestic waste, hazardous waste
and sewage sludge, including other thermal processes for waste treatment, e.g. for
contaminated soils
Waste-to-energy-processes in power stations, combustion plants and cement kilns
Mechanical-biological treatment plants for domestic and commercial waste
Landfills and
Intermediate waste stocks and comparable transition and collection stations.
Furthermore, industrial reutilization processes, e.g. for glass, paper and plastics are
playing an important role in the material recycling of waste.
The most important group is represented by the 692 mechanical reprocessing plants –
272 of which are mineral building rubble reprocessing plants. Landfills (461 plants) and
screening plants (186) are the next important plant types. The number of biological
treatment plants (100) increased a lot during the last few years due to the requirement of
anaerobic digestion (15) and composting (85) of biowaste and green waste, sewage
sludge and waste from food industry. The chemical-physical treatment plants (77) mostly
for hazardous waste are an important disposal branch as well. Finally, thermal processes
and incinerators (58) are to be mentioned.
The recovery of waste in industrial processes (635 plants) as e.g. in combustion plants
and power stations rapidly increased as well during the last few years. Their knowledge
and recording have become indispensable for a complete view of waste streams.
However, the legal distinction of what is waste and what is ‘non-waste’ sometimes
becomes difficult in these cases.
Landfills are still one of the most important waste disposal facilities in North RhineWestphalia - also as far as quantity is concerned: 282 landfills for inert material of landfill
class DK I according to European directive (predominately former landfills for soil and
building rubble), 89 landfills of the landfill class DK II (former landfills for mixed domestic
and commercial waste or sewage sludge), 57 landfills for industrial and commercial waste
(disposal class II or III) and 22 landfills for hazardous waste (DK III) are operated in North
Rhine-Westphalia.
Besides, the types of waste disposal and treatment plants mentioned above, there are
some other types, as e.g. the 301 scrap vehicle demolishing facilities – nowadays
progressively advancing to vehicle dismantling plants - and 407 intermediate waste
stocks, transition and recollection stations. In addition, we depart from the fact that 87
asphalt mixing plants reprocessing road material and 154 active excavations with earth
and other inert material backfills are existing – both beyond legal waste definition.
The complete results of the investigations on waste disposal and recovery infrastructure
are presented in Appendix 2 and in Chapter 8. The most important disposal and
recovery options shall be discussed in detail now:
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
2
3. Biological treatment plants
Composting plants:
Composting plants and anaerobic digestion plants are favorable recycling facilities for
biowaste, green waste, sewage sludge and several waste materials from food industries.
Composting plants primarily aim at producing compost as fertilizer, whereas the digestion
plants are producing not only compost, but also fluid fertilizers and biogas for heat
generation. A comparison of the energy balance of the two options gives priority to biogas
production instead of composting. At present, there are important development activities
in the field of biogas technology for biodegradable waste.
During the last decade, the biological waste treatment gained more and more importance.
In total, 105 plants are operated in NRW. With a capacity of 1,6 and an input rate of 1,42
mn tons/a, North Rhine-Westphalia is playing a prime role in biological waste processing
in Germany.
Composting plants (90) still are the predominant biological treatment option. With the
separate collection of all bio-degradable waste from North Rhine-Westphalian
households, the system capacity for composting rapidly increased to 1.4 mn tons/a. The
input rate in 2000 was 1.32 mn tons (resp. 73 kg / inhabitant a) – this represents three
quarters of the biodegradable waste generation in North Rhine-Westphalian households.
About 22 % of those 90 composting plants apply open composting. In terms of available
system capacities, 9 % only are working with open composting. Half of all compost
produced is used in agriculture, a quarter of it is used for recultivation purposes (mainly in
mining areas) and the remaining 25 % are applied in horticulture and private gardening,
on cemeteries as well as by road construction firms and earth factories.
Anaerobic digestion plants
In 15 anaerobic digestion plants, 100,000 tons/a of waste material are handled. The input
rate is increasing rapidly. The range of capacity of these facilities varies between 1,000
and 40,000 tons/a. In total, the processing capacity comes up to 200,000 tons/a.
These plants are producing 43 % of compost, 54 % of fluid fertilizers and only 3 % of
obstructing material requiring incineration. Biogas rates amount to 10 up to 570 m³/h. This
corresponds to a production rate of 70 to 120 m³/tons of waste. The methane content
usually comes up to between 50 and 80 %.
4. Mechanical re-processing and screening plants
Screening plants
While mechanical reprocessing plants are using more sophisticated technical equipment
for waste dissection, screening plants are low-technology plants destined for the positive
or negative selection of waste compounds, traditionally by manual labor. Today, these
plants constitute the first step in a chain of more complex recycling processes. 186 such
screening plants are existing in North Rhine-Westphalia. Mixed commercial waste,
residual domestic waste and mixed building rubble are favorable waste fractions. The
capacity of the screening plants in NRW comes up to 10.5 mn tons/a; the input rate
amounts to 5.1 mn tons/a.
Relevant waste fractions which can be recycled are earth material (negative selection of
obstructing material). In screening plants for paper/cardboard, wood, plastics and metals
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
3
with positive selection of reusable compounds, the residual fraction after screening can be
quite high and may come up to 60 %. This residual fraction usually has to be disposed of
in landfills and incinerators.
Three main types of screening plants (respectively process lines within screening plants)
can be distinguished in North Rhine-Westphalia. These are:
· the paper sorting process lines (capacity 1,95 mn tons/a),
· the sorting lines exclusively for packaging waste from DUALES SYSTEM
DEUTSCHLAND (German dual waste management system – DSD (capacity 0,94 mn
tons/a) and
· the sorting-lines for mixed commercial waste and building rubble (capacity 7,61 mn
tons/a).
A comparison of the residual fraction after screening reveals surprising differences: The
input material in paper sorting lines is almost completely recycled. The percentage of
residual fraction in DSD sorting lines suitable for elimination in disposal plants is
considerably higher (up to approx. 25 % ). The residual fraction of mixed commercial
waste and building rubble appropriate for elimination in disposal plants can amount to
approx. 40 %. As a consequence, it can be outlined that the applied sorting technique for
the latter mentioned material has not yet been optimized.
Mechanical re-processing plants
Mechanical reprocessing plants are applied for material recovery from solid waste. In our
opinion, they differ from screening plants, as they are providing further mechanical
procedures as e.g. cutting, crushing and sieving, washing, mixing and solidifying with
binding agents. In general, the destination of both systems is quite similar: disconnection
and disintegration of relevant recyclable waste fractions from pollutants and obstructing
fractions in order to make the reuse easier. Processes become more and more
sophisticated in order to extract quantitatively more and qualitatively better (= purer)
material.
This group of treatment plants constitutes the largest group with 692 plants in total. They
are representing a system capacity of more than 77 mn tons/a and an average input rate
(between 1998 and 2000) of 28 mn tons/a (Table 1). They are uniformly distributed all
over North Rhine-Westphalia. From these 692 mechanical-reprocessing plants, 395 plants
are applied for the re-processing of mineral residues from road construction and building
rubble. More than half of the mentioned capacity (43 mn tons/a) and half of the input (13
mn tons/a) refer to the recycling of mineral building material including asphalt recycling.
Waste statistics of 1998 show that another 4.86 mn tons of mineral building waste and
another 1.78 mn tons of mixed waste from construction sites have been disposed of in
landfills and are still awaiting recycling.
The remaining reprocessing plants specialize in a great number of different waste types
using different types and combinations of mechanical aggregates (table: waste types with
more than 1 mn tons/a).
Waste type
Building rubble, mineral
residues from road construction
Asphalt from road restoration
Waste from heavy industry
(Steel, ferrous and non-ferrous
metals)
Mixed waste from construction
sites
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
Number of process lines within
plants
303
92
Licensed capacity
[tons/a]
34.030.000
8.800.000
8.000.000
21
28
5.500.000
4
Ferrous metals
Other mineral waste
Bottom slag and ashes from
incinerators
Secondary combustibles from
waste *)
Wood
Glass
5.430.000
3.770.000
2.000.000
65
13
8
1.330.000
23
1.210.000
1.080.000
23
9
*) = discussed in detail below)
Table 1: Mechanical reprocessing plants in North Rhine-Westphalia, ordered
according to capacity as far as waste types with more than 1 mn tons/a are
concerned (status 06/2001)
5. Chemical-physical treatment plants
Chemical-physical treatment is applied for fluid and pasty, mostly hazardous waste. Only
few of these plants are processing certain types of solid waste material, as e.g. batteries.
The plants are operated with the objective to remove organic and inorganic impurities, to
separate solid fractions from liquid waste fractions, to split off relevant recyclable fractions
(e.g. oil, solvents) and to obtain a sewage water which can be discharged into the public
sewage system. The destruction or reduction of hazardous substances and properties is
the result of chemical reactions (neutralization, oxidation, reduction, electrolysis) and/or
physical processes (filtering, decantation, sedimentation). The result of this destruction
and/or concentration of hazardous compounds is a solid output material which can be
finally disposed of or incinerated. After filtration in buffer tanks and analytical control
stations, the waste water from North Rhine-Westphalian chemical-physical treatment
plants is finally discharged into the public sewage system and cleaned in public waste
water treatment plants together with communal waste water.
These 77 chemical-physical treatment plants are representing 8 % of the total number of
plants operating in NRW. They are situated along the river Rhine and in the Ruhr District,
where industrial and commercial activities are concentrated. The German technical
regulation pertaining to hazardous waste requires a general separation of chemical
physical treatment for inorganic waste and for organic waste. In June 2001, 37 plants
accepted organic waste only, while 20 plants accepted inorganic waste only. In 16
plants both groups of waste were handled. Four plants carry out special types of
chemical-physical processing. Here, batteries, transformers and septic hospital waste are
mostly handled by means of distillation.
Waste material
Waste water/ drainage water from
landfills etc.
Hazardous waste (fluid / pasty)
Sludge e.g. from separators and
precipitators
Oil-containing liquids / emulsions
(service fluids)
Waste oil
Waste acids, spent acids
Waste from colors /pigments/solvents
Others
Total of acceptance capacities
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
Number of
operating process
lines
11
Licensed capacity
in tons/a
1,221,960
25
29
514,600
359,440
15
300,000
4
6
7
33
131
222,400
216,080
130,360
215.307
3,180,147
5
Table 2: Licensed capacities of chemical-physical treatment in NRW, differentiated
according to waste types (status 06/2001)
The total licensed capacity of these chemical-physical treatment plants in NRW comes up
to approx. 3.2 mn tons/a; the input rate in 1998/1999 was approx. 1.55 mn tons/a. Table
2 shows the distribution of the chemical-physical treatment plants and capacities with
regard to different waste material. In 21 plants with a total capacity of approximately
754.000 tons/a, oil-containing liquids are treated by means of emulsion separation.
Among these chemical-physical treatment plants, the distillation plants are constituting a
group with technically well delimitable treatment technology. The distillation procedure is
used for the recovery of solvents and other organic liquids, like antifreeze and brake
fluids, Freon 12 and similar compounds. In North Rhine-Westphalia, 20 chemical-physical
treatment plants of this type (with in total 26 process-lines) are operating. They are
representing a licensed capacity of 340,000 tons/a. The average input rate of the last
three years was 110,000 tons/a.
6. Thermal treatment plants
The prime objectives of thermal waste treatment are the reduction of volume (necessary
for landfills), the destruction of organic pollutants, the extraction of recyclable compounds
and – last, but not least – the energy recovery from waste.
Waste incinerators have different stove types depending on the waste type treated: pasty
and fluid hazardous waste requires an other oven type than domestic and commercial
waste or sewage sludge. Meanwhile, North Rhine-Westphalia disposes of a sufficient
number of different types of incineration plants for mineralizing the total of residual waste
generated.
Most of the incinerators for hazardous waste are part of big production plants of chemical
industries; they are situated along the river Rhine. On the other hand, sewage sludge and
domestic waste incinerators - still operated and controlled by public enterprises - are
distributed more uniformly all over NRW.
Incineration plants
In North Rhine-Westphalia, 36 waste incinerators are in operation. 15 of them are
domestic waste incinerators, 6 are sewage sludge incinerators and 14 are hazardous
waste incinerators. In addition, the RZR-Herten incineration plant provides both
technologies - one for domestic waste and one for hazardous waste. The Bielefeld
incineration plant for domestic waste operates three additional stoves for septic hospital
waste. The capacity of waste incineration in North Rhine-Westphalia amounts to 6,2 mn
tons/a (Table 3).
Incinerators for
Domestic waste, partly
including sewage sludge
Sewage sludge only (dry
mass content)
Hazardous waste
Total
16
Capacity*
Approved of
[tons/a]
5,400,000
6
240,000
106,000
550,000
6,190,000
378,000
5,384,000
Number of plants
15
37**
Input 1998/99
[tons/a]
4,900,000
Table 3: Number, capacities and input rates of waste incineration plants in NRW,
(status 06/2001)
*
**
The approved capacity is higher than the realized capacity.
RZR-Herten is mentioned twice due to it‘s subsystems for hazardous waste and for domestic waste.
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
6
Those 16 domestic waste incinerators are representing a total licensed capacity of 5.4 mn
tons/a, respectively a realized capacity of approximately 5.24 mn tons/a, about 1 mn
ton/a of which were realized within the last three years. In 1999, about 4.9 mn tons of
domestic waste were treated.
Beyond this, a total capacity of 240,000 tons/a is available in specialized sewage sludge
incinerators. The six plants are either operated by waste water associations (3), by local
public institutions (1) or by industrial production companies (2). Most of them are using the
fluidized bed firing system. Sewage sludge can, however, also be treated in domestic
waste incinerators. In total, 224,000 tons of sewage sludge (calculated as dry mass
content) were treated in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1998.
The 15 incineration plants for hazardous waste are mostly located within chemical
industries and are therefore concentrated along the river Rhine. The licensed capacity of
these plants amounts to 550,000 tons/a, the realized capacity to 470,000 tons/a. Almost
all of them can be used by other waste generators as well. In 1998, 378,000 tons of
waste were treated there. The transfer of hazardous waste from abroad, especially from
Benelux increased from 5,000 to approx. 16,000 tons/a within 2 years.
Other thermal treatment plants
Besides these incineration plants, numerous other thermal processes with a wide range of
waste recovery or disposal objectives are existing. There are burning places for
pyrotechnical production residues, plants for the recovery of non-ferrous metals (Al, Ag),
regeneration plants for used foundry sands or for loaded active carbon etc. The total
capacity of these plants amounts to 508,000 tons/a, with individual capacities of 10,000 to
50,000 tons/a. Furthermore, there is a thermal treatment plant for contaminated soils in
North Rhine-Westphalia, where organic pollutants are destroyed in a pyrolysis drum.
7. Power stations, cement kilns and blast furnaces
Power stations, cement kilns and other energy intense production processes are
contributing to the energetic use of waste as well. Waste oil, scrap tires, pre-conditioned
combustibles from domestic residual waste and commercial waste are interesting waste
types. Licenses for such energy-intensive production facilities continue to be adjusted to
this increasing need for cheap energy sources. Waste input rates depend on the
characteristics of the energy delivering process, the quality requirements of the product
and the exhaust cleaning technique applied.
Power stations
38 out of 170 power stations in North Rhine-Westphalia were provided with a permission
for waste-to-energy reuse. Power stations at 31 sites used appreciable amounts of waste.
Some of them are industrial facility owned power stations, reusing internal production
residues only. Ten out of these 20 plants are located together with refineries or other
chemical factories, while other seven plants are attributed to wood industries and paper
production. In those facilities, 1.1 mn tons /a of waste can be reused. This is double the
annual amount of waste transformed to energy (490,000 tons).
Cement kilns
Only 10 out of 21 sites for cement production in North Rhine-Westphalia are disposing of
a permission for the use of waste for energy production and/or as secondary raw material.
All of these ten works apply rotary kilns with cyclone preheater systems.
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
7
In nine of these ten cement kilns, 280,000 tons/a of combustibles were replaced by waste
material (1998/1999). This amount could be more than duplicated as well, if the plant
operators would actually make full use of the licensed capacities of 690,000 tons/a. In
addition to the traditional waste types like scrap tires and waste oils, new combustibles
reprocessed from domestic and commercial waste were used within the last two years in
an order of 160,000 tons/a. At present, the average value of energy substitution in terms
of calorific value for all ten cement kilns amounts to 53 %.
Blast furnaces
In another 12 plants at eight different industrial sites in North Rhine-Westphalia, the
material and/or energetic reuse of waste is licensed: there are sintering plants (3), iron
and steel production plants (2) and non-ferrous metal production plants (7). In none of
them, however, the energetic reuse of waste was practiced during the last few years.
8. Conclusions and outlook
The present waste treatment infrastructure in North Rhine-Westphalia can be described
with the following characteristics:
§
§
§
§
about 3000 plants in North Rhine-Westphalia are serving as waste disposal and
recovery plants;
about 100 mn tons of system capacity are legally licensed here (not considering the
landfill capacity)
about 42 mn tons of waste are handled in these facilities per year, out of which 4.25
mn tons were hazardous waste.
These plants are specializing in more than 50 different material groups, partly with
input quantities of more than 1 mn t/a.
This highly developed recycling and disposal infrastructure forms an economic branch
which has gained importance far beyond the limits of the state. Some of the plants can be
designated as "specialists", as they are concentrating on dangerous pollutants e.g. PCB
and are treating quantitatively small waste streams, while others "generalists" splitting up
a wide range of waste materials into individual constituents, favorable for recycling.
Anyway: Waste recycling requires more and more diversified reprocessing activities which
can either be concentrated at one site (with one operator) or distributed over several
plants at several sites with different operators. The disposal network covers the entire
state; focal points are nearby industrial activities and those areas where the density of
population is particularly high.
Throughout the year of 1998, 73.58 mn tons of waste were treated and landfilled. This
comes up to 4 tons per inhabitant and year. Almost two third of it, (47.14 mn tons) were
recovered and only one third (26.44 mn tons) were eliminated in landfills and
incinerators. Approximately 42 mn tons of waste were treated in “classical“ waste disposal
and recovery plants (described in appendix 2). These plants correspond to a licensed
treatment capacity of more than 100 mn t/a. Three quarters of these 42 mn tons of waste
were treated in mechanical reprocessing and screening plants; nearly 90 % of the
total capacity (100 mn tons) are to be found in the field of mechanical reprocessing and
screening. The mineral construction waste (soils, building debris, road break-up
including asphalt) constitutes a considerable part (13 mn tons) of these throughputs and
capacities.
Meanwhile, mechanical reprocessing represents 46 % and landfills 26 % only of all
disposal and recovery options; within a couple of years, mechanical reprocessing took
over the prime position (Figure 3). The direct material reuse in industrial processes (15 %)
and the incineration (approx. 8 %) constitute important disposal possibilities as well.
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
8
Biological and combined mechanical-biological processing plants, chemical-physical
treatment plants and waste-to-energy plants make up the remaining part of approx. 5 %
only. Yet, this quantitative statement does not allow any conclusions concerning the
environmental relevance and the economic importance of those individual disposal and
recovery techniques.
In such a technically oriented, more and more diversified and privately organized
commercial and industrial waste management sector, small scale enterprises with a low
technological standard will disappear more and more – replaced by economically powerful
enterprises offering integrated disposal and recovery solutions for a multitude of
different waste streams and used-up products - facilities that are disseminated all over the
country.
The further development strongly depends on european legislation and technical
innovation potential: the German Technical Directive on municipal waste (1993) combined
with the European Directive and the German Ordinance for Landfills (2002) of waste have
progressively changed and will continue to change the infrastructure of waste treatment in
Germany up to the threshold point of 2005, when landfills of organic waste will be
completely forbidden. New incentives came from the greenhouse effect (waste-to-energy
concepts) combined with waste-to–fertilizer concepts that brought forth a variety of new
recycling options for waste in production processes. Material requirements for these input
materials that substitute primary raw material and fossil combustibles created the
necessity of more sophisticated reprocessing techniques for a large variety of waste
materials (wood, papersludge, waste oil, residues from sorting plants etc.).
waste-to-energy
process without
mechanical
reprocessing
1 mn t,
(1%)
direct re-use
without mechnical
re-processing
11 mn t,
(15 %)
Landfilling
19,08 mn t,
(26 %)
Incineration
5,63 mn t, (8%)
mechanical
re-processing of
construction
debris, roads etc.
13,30 Mio.t,
(18 %)
ChemicalPhysical
treatment
1,55 mn t,
(2%)
mechanical
re-processing,
others
20,03mn t,
(28 %)
Biological
treatment
1,75 mn t,
(2%)
MechanicalBiological
treatment
0,24 mn t,
(<< 1 %)
Figure 3 Distribution of disposal and recovery options in NRW (Status 2001: 73.6 mn tons)
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
9
Bibliography
LUA NRW /
MUNLV
Entsorgungsatlas NRW – Statusbericht der Entsorgungsanlagen mit CD-ROM –
Ministerium für Umwelt und Naturschutz, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz
des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (Hrsg.), Düsseldorf 2001 (First Status Report
on the complete infrastructure of waste disposal and recovery in North
Rhine-Westphalia – text volume and CD-ROM, also available on the internet
homepage: www.munlv.nrw.de /Arbeitsbereiche /Abfall /Entsorgungsatlas)
Morstadt, S.
Striegel, K.-H.
Die Rolle der Sortier- und Aufbereitungsanlagen für die Entsorgung von
gewerblichen und kommunalen Massenabfällen in Nordrhein-Westfalen, In:
Gewässerschutz-Wasser-Abwasser, Bd. 177, 33. Essener Tagung für Wasserund Abfallwirtschaft, Institut für Siedlungswasserwirtschaft der RWTH Aachen
(Hrsg.), Aachen 2000 (Publication on the role and function of sorting plants
and mechanical re-processing facilities in NRW)
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
10
Appendix 1:
Number and type of waste disposal and recovery facilities in North RhineWestphalia / Germany (June 2001)
Biological treatment plants
100
Composting plants
85*
Anaerobic digestion plants
15*
Chemical-physical
treatment in a broader sense
955
Chemical-physical treatment
plants
77
Specialization:
30*
Bio waste composting plants
49*
Green waste composting plants
6*
Sewage sludge composting plants
15
Bio-waste and comparable waste (excluding plants for
agricultural digestion of mature only)
Specialization:
37
For organic waste only
20
For inorganic waste only
16
For inorganic and organic waste
4
Sorting plants
186
38
For paper only
17
For packaging waste only (DUAL Refuse System Germany)
131
Mechanical reprocessing
plants
692
Heat-controlled processes
58
Incineration plants
36
Other heat-controlled
processes
Combined mechanical-/
biological treatment plants
Contaminated soil
treatment plants
22
Other waste disposal
facilities
862
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
from construction work
272
For mineral building debris and mineral street break-up debris
115
For mixed building rubbish and asphalt reprocessing plants
62
For iron and non-ferrous metals (s.a. wrecked car disassembly
sites)
43
For industrial mineral waste (slag, ashes, sands, powders )
41
For plastics
43
For electrical and electronic devices
15
For wood
20
For extraction of combustibles for waste-to-energy processes
19
For grease from food waste and animal carcasses
62
For further materials (a.o. cables, glass, paper, tires)
Specialization:
22
For domestic waste and sewage sludge
14
For hazardous waste
10
Facilities for heat controlled extraction of chemicals
6
Facilities for heat controlled destruction of certain wastes
6
Melting, drying and heat-controlled dissociation processes
15
635
Total
For commercial waste and mixed waste originating
4
Industrial production
processes with waste
recovery
Landfills
Other chemical-physical treatment plants
204
Material recycling in production processes
431
Waste-to-energy processes (power plants, cement kilns, etc.)
407
Stocks / collection and transition stations / intermediate deposit
301
Wrecked Car Disassembly Sites
154
Fill-up of trenches and ditches (no landfills in a legal sense)
282
For inert material - German Disposal Class (GDC) I
461
89
For other waste (GDC II )
57
For certain industrial and commercial waste (GDC II/III)
22
For hazardous waste (GDC III)
11
Underground storage (reuse of waste for mining purposes)
3090
11
Appendix 2
Results of investigation on waste disposal and recovery infrastructure in June 2001
1)
Type of treatment
Facility type
Waste treated
Purpose of treatment
Number of facilities
Licensed capacity
Annual input (1998,
1999, 2000)
Biological treatment
Specialization:
Bio-degradable waste and yard
waste from households and
industries, sewage sludge
Transformation of biodegradable waste into fertilizer
and soil conditioner
90
1.4 mn t
1.32 mn t
Bio-waste and yard waste,
vegetable and animal residues
from food production, grease
and fat
Extraction of biogas (methane)
for energy recovery,
transformation of biowaste into
fertilizer
15
0.2 mn t
0.1 mn t
105
1.6 mn t
1.42 mn t
Composting plants
Anaerobic digestion
plants
In total:
Biological treatment
plants for contaminated
soil
Contaminated soil
Destruction of organic pollutants
in the soil
12
0.77 mn t
0.33 mn t
Chemical-physical
treatment
Chemical-physical
treatment plants
Residual solvents, emulsions,
other water/oil mixtures, acids
and bases, industrial sewage
sludge and other industrial
sludge and liquids
Chemical extraction of
recyclable fractions (e.g.
petroleum), destruction or
extraction and concentration of
pollutants, recovery of tolerable
waste water concentrations,
neutralization of acids, etc.
77
3.20 mn t
1.55 mn t
Mechanical reprocessing
Specialization:
Solid waste from households
and industries like papers,
packaging material,
construction debris and
building rubble,
Separation and extraction of
recyclable and combustible
waste fractions
186
10.5 mn t
5.09 mn t
Solid waste from households
and industries like packages,
construction debris and
building rubble, plastics,
electronic devices and metals,
slag and ashes
Shredding and screening for
recovery of recyclable materials
and separation of pollutant
substances, cleaning by
washing, mixing and solidifying
692
34.83 mn t
14.94 mn t
+ 42.84 mn t
constr. debris and
asphalt
+ 13.3 mn t
constr. debris and
asphalt
Contaminated soils
Cleaning by washing,
mechanical reprocessing
2
0.046 mn t
0.004 mn t
880
88.22 mn t
33.33 mn t
16
5.4 mn t 1)
4.9 mn t
Sorting plants
Mechanical reprocessing plants
Washing plants for
contaminated soils
Subtotal
Heat-controlled
processes
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
Specialization:
Domestic waste
i i
t
High calorific waste from
households, public institutions
and small industries
Heat controlled destruction of
organic pollutants, recovery of
recyclable fractions (metals,
12
incinerators
slag) energy recovery from
waste volume reduction prior to
application for landfills,
Hazardous waste
incinerators
High calorific waste from
industrial processes and
hazardous products from
households
see above
14
0.55 mn t
0.378 mn t
Sewage sludge
incinerators
Sewage sludge from public and
industrial waste water
purification plants
see above
6
0.24 mn t
0.106 mn t (dried
mass)
Other heat-controlled
processes
Waste with organic pollutants
(e.g. activated carbon, oilcontaminated metals, cables),
metals, pyrotechnical residues
Heat-controlled destruction of
organic pollutants, recovery of
recyclable fractions
22
0.508 mn t
0.2 mn t
Heat-controlled
treatment plants for
contaminated soils
Soil contaminated with organic
compounds
Heat-controlled destruction of
organic pollutants, recovery of
recyclable fractions
1
0.048 mn t
0.045 mn t
59
6.75 mn t
5.63 mn t
4
0.55 mn t
0.24 mn t
1137
101.09 mn t
42.50 mn t
880 of these are
mech. reprocessing plants
88.22 mn t to be
allocated to mech.
reprocessing
33,33 mn t to be
allocated to mech.
reprocessing
Subtotal
Combined
mechanical/biological
treatment
Combined
mechanical/biological
treatment plants
Residual waste from
households and industry
Extraction of recyclable
fractions and controlled
degradation of organic
substance within residual waste
prior to landfill application
Total in NRW
1)
The licensed capacity of installations is higher than the installed capacity or even the effective capacity (considering interruption and maintenance periods). Political decisions may as well reduce the
effective capacity of treatment plants. The effective capacity of domestic waste incinerators comes up to 4.93 mn t/a
SARDINIA2003_2_Infrastructure.doc
13
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