to read the full report - Ecolateral by Peter Jones

Evaluation of Opportunities for Converting Indigenous UK Wastes to Wastes and Energy
AEA/ED45551/Issue 1
5 Arisings of components suitable for
energy
Chapter 4 presented an overview of the waste arisings by origin across the UK. In this chapter we
discuss those components that are commonly cited as suitable for energy and fuel solutions.
Each of the waste types discussed here is a subsection of, and a combination of, those already detailed
above. The arisings presented here therefore do not represent additional arisings, but rather double
counting.
Many of these streams are to some degree already collected separately and used directly for energy or
being traded as fuel. This is a tendency that will increase as demand for renewable fuels increases as a
result of the Renewables Obligation and Renewable Heat Incentive.
Immediately identifiable arisings that could provide a biomass resource include:
1. Wood residues: forestry (e.g. thinnings), virgin and treated wood processing waste, used wood.
2. Agricultural residues: dry residues such as straw, husks and poultry litter, and wet residues such
as manures and slurries.
3. Municipal solid wastes including refuse derived fuels, kitchen wastes and garden wastes.
4. Industrial and commercial wastes which include food and drink processing residues, tallow, meat
and bone meal, pulp and paper sludges and liquors, textile residues, recovered vegetable oils.
Those waste materials that have adequate data available, have been discussed. The pulling together of
information from different waste streams allows a comprehensive picture of the total resource to be given.
5.1 Waste Wood
Background
In this section the arisings of treated and post-consumer waste wood are evaluated. Clean waste wood
from untreated wood processing is included in the section on forest residues and not included here.
Each year in the UK it is estimated that over 7.5 million tonnes of wood waste is produced, approximately
1.8% of total UK waste arisings. Of this over 80% is landfilled, 16% recycled and reused, and energy
recovered from 4%. 108 Taking into account recent economic developments and the slowing of the
economy, it is likely that this amount will fall in the short term. Indeed there are already reports that wood
recyclers are dropping the fees they charge to take in wood, as the levels being disposed of go down.
The decrease is most noticeable from the construction sector, and is believed to be having a knock on
effect on the chipboard and wood panel producers. 109
The markets for virgin untreated wood have developed rapidly in recent years due to the expansion of
biomass heating in particular. The use of waste wood has not developed in a similar way. Treated waste
wood includes anything that has had a surface coatings applied to it such as paints and varnishes or
impregnation with preservative. The Waste Incineration Directive (WID) requires that combustion of wood
waste containing heavy metals or halogenated hydrocarbons must meet strict emissions limits; cleaner
wood is excluded for the purpose of combustion, but mixtures are usually regarded as contaminated for
the purposes of combustion. Thus it is possible to recover energy in the form of power and heat from this
contaminated wood, but pollution abatement must be installed to ensure the emissions limits are not
108 Carbon Balances and Energy Impacts of the Management of UK Wastes, Defra R&D Project WRT 237, ERM, 2006,
http://www.resourcesnotwaste.org/members/conf-application-form/Carbon&Waste(ERM).pdf
109 Wood recyclers slash gate fees, 04-02-2009, Lets recycle.com,
http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=217&listitemid=10989
69