The Global WTERT Council and its Role in Advancing WTE Technologies

This paper describes the mission and recent international activities of the Waste to Energy Research and Technology Council. In the last fifteen years, the Earth Engineering Center (EEC) of Columbia University in New York City has conducted scientific research on the generation and disposition of wastes in many countries and on all continents. These studies have shown that over one billion tons of municipal solid wastes (MSW) are landfilled each year, mostly in landfills that are not equipped to capture landfill gas (LFG) and prevent water contamination. Therefore, EEC has proposed the expanded Hierarchy of Waste Management that recommends recycling and composting from source-separated wastes and differentiates between traditional dumps and modern sanitary landfills. EEC research has also established that the only alternative to landfilling for post-recycling wastes is thermal treatment with simultaneously energy recovery, commonly called waste to energy (WTE).

In order to advance the goals of sustainable waste management and, in particular, increase WTE capacity and landfill gas capture worldwide, EEC in 2002 formed the Waste to Energy Research and Technology Council. This Council is an international scientific research organization that brings together universities, industry and government agencies concerned with advancing waste management and by now is the foremost research organization on the recovery of energy and materials from solid wastes in the U.S.A. The US-organization is headquartered at the Earth Engineering Center of Columbia University in New York City. Also, in recent years, sister organizations have also been formed in other nations such as China, Canada, Greece (Synergia), Germany, Japan, Brazil. Organizations are also under development in India (in collaboration with the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute of India (NEERI), in Italy (Polytechnic University of Milan), France (Ecole des Mines L’Albi) and the U.K. (Imperial College).



Copyright: © Thomé-Kozmiensky Verlag GmbH
Quelle: Waste Management, Volume 2 (September 2011)
Seiten: 7
Preis: € 0,00
Autor: Dr. Efstratios Kalogirou
Prof. Nickolas J. Themelis
 
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