Prior to the December climate change conference in Copenhagen the International Solid Waste Association held its own conference on 'Waste and Climate Change'. It produced an enlightening white paper which shows that better management of waste could play a massive part in reducing GHG emissions worldwide.
This will come as no great surprise to those of us in the waste industry. We have known this for a long time. But the area we really need to work on in order to make this change happen is the one which has made the slowest progress in terms of legislation – biowaste.
Despite calls from member states in the EU, and organizations such as the Biowaste Alliance, no actual Directive has been set regarding the treatment of biowaste in Europe. No wonder then that there are such a multitude of different opinions as to how we should be dealing with it.
This issue's biowaste special encompasses many different aspects of the debate and gives an insight into the variety of treatments out there. There is a look at a system which turns wood waste into energy (page 34), the rise of Anaerobic Digestion (page 16), a composting project profile from a UK ecopark (page 28), discussions about home treatment (page 24) and separate collection of food waste (page 30), and the argument for a Biowaste Directive (page 20).
Other stories worthy of note are a look at recycling in the Netherlands (page 41), the Waste2Tricity process and the rise of plasma gasification (page 54), a journey to Italy with Malcolm Bates (page 50), and a project profile of a Korean landfill which is being turned into an educational and leisure facility (page 48).
I hope you enjoy this issue.
Until next time...
Best regards
Claudine Capel
Editor, Waste Management World
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