Energy and materials recovery from post-recycling wastes: WTE

One of the most misunderstood technologies in some parts of the world and widely adopted technologies in others is the recovery of energy and materials by the controlled combustion of post-recycling wastes. This technology is commonly called waste-to-energy, or simply WTE. After all possible efforts for recycling or composting wastes, there remains a large post-recycling fraction that is either landfilled or used as fuel in WTE power plants that also recover metals and minerals. Several nations, e.g., Switzerland, Japan, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany, have succeeded in phasing out landfilling by processing all theãir post-recycling municipal solid wastes (MSW) in WTE power plants. This paper reviews the evolution and importance of WTE in the twenty-first century, with special focus on the world’s largest economies: the EU, US, and China.

Graphical abstract