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Geosynthetica’s Elizabeth Peggs reports from San Antonio. The biennial Global Waste Management Symposium is being held through October 6. Elizabeth will file reports as time permits.
Mid-day, October 4: The Global Waste Management Symposium (GWMS) is to very well attended. Sunday evening opened with an evening reception on the lawn of the host site, the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort. Monday morning started bright and early with a 7:30 breakfast in the main exhibit room, which bustled with activity right up until Dr. Thomas Christensen’s Keynote Lecture at 8:30.
Approximately 350 attendees settled in for Christensen’s lecture. (Christensen comes to the GWMS from the Technical University of Denmark.) He illustrated to the audience the various system types of waste management throughout Europe, with a table showing each county’s use (by %) of incineration, recycling and landfilling. Of note, he demonstrated that the % of each waste management system did not always correlate to the greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, the factors that affect the impact of each method on green house gas emissions are as follows:
- Recycling
- Interaction with Energy Systems
- Landfill technologies employed
- And waste composition
It’s not simply enough to use these technologies; they must be used well. Landfills can be less impactful than incineration if excellent energy recovery systems are utilized. Incineration can cause carbon credit when used to drive certain types of energy creation and can create a load when used.
Questions from the audience included the request for a cost based analysis of these different technologies. It became clear that the costs were very specific to the local or regional application and are relative to energy costs and regulatory costs of each jurisdiction.
More updates are forthcoming.
Elizabeth Peggs is Geosynthetica’s Director. Contact Us Today!.
