A WASTE OF GARBAGE
By Andrew Hanidelsz
"One of the problems with developing countries is that their first priority is to eat, feed the people and develop the industry. And they (governments) tend to do that at the expense of the environment. But by not anticipating the need for adequate public planning for waste handling, treatment, storage and disposal they allow for the creation of a hidden environmental time bomb"
ALL around the Pacific Rim rapidly industrializing nations are complaining that their economies can’t afford to deal with their equally rapidly growing stockpiles of toxic wastes. The exception, according to Chemical Week, is Japan which has substantial incineration, treatment, and landfill capabilities.
Japan generates more than 14 million mt/year (metric tonne per year) of chemical waste, which is reduced to 2.51 million mt/ year after treatment and recycling.
Even relatively affluent Hong Kong had to wait until the ‘90s before it felt it could afford to invest in a privately designed, built and managed 70,000 mt/yr industrial chemical waste treatment center, the Tsing Yi CWTC.
The question is, if it is really a matter of cost, how can less affluent nations even hope to afford a more responsible system? And why look for the answers in Hong Kong?
Contrary to popular belief, the territory is not only a favorable site for the introduction of environmental technologies, it is also the place where new technologies relevant to the region are sounded out.
In fact one of the reasons the company that is offering the new system claims it established a presence here is due to the long overdue example the territory has been setting for the region.
"The costs of managing waste need not be insurmountable, contends Lawrence Artz, managing director of Safety and Technology Group, the local representative for the Lundell Manufacturing Company, one of the oldest integrated waste stream separation, recycling, composting and energy recovery turnkey systems in the industry. Says Artz: "I believe the answer may be contained in the problem. Consider this; due to the current state of knowledge in the recycling and energy recovery industry the municipal waste stream has a payback, whereas the toxic waste stream does not. The idea is to offset the one with the other.
"Under a waste stream separation regime, such as the one we are offering — where the different components of the municipal waste stream are separated for recycling, re-use, land reclamation, composting and energy recovery — only about 8 per cent of the total volume of an average city’s municipal waste would end up going to the landfill: The rest would be sold to recyclers, made into compost or converted into energy pellets.
Seems like a good idea. Selling recyclable materials, composting and recovering energy from refuse not only provides a healthy revenue stream for the user — not to mention the opportunity cost of extending the life cycle of existing landfill sites — it also means that the community is able to deal with its waste problem instead of merely burying or burning it and hoping it will go away.
Artz agrees, in fact his company is banking on people recognizing the intuitive sense behind his program: "Waste does not disappear," he says, "unless you transform it into something else, in which case it stops being waste and becomes a resource. I believe that if all these benefits — albeit some of which are ‘merely’ psychological — were to be recognized and factored into the national waste management equation, they could be used to offset the capital costs and political will required for a more comprehensive waste management system."
LANDFILLS are filling up. The territory’s three new strategic landfills are only expected to last a mere twenty-five to thirty years. One reason behind this is that unlike most European and American landfills, Hong Kong’s sites contain an unusually high percentage of construction waste.
Does this situation undermine whatever validity there is in investing in a waste separation plant or even the idea of encouraging waste separation at source?
"To answer you last question first, it’s always a good idea to introduce the idea of waste separation at source — households, factories, and offices — because the mere act of differentiating between plastic, paper, rubber, glass and organic refuse tends to raise awareness, and to a certain degree, influence spending patterns on the part of the consumer," says Artz.
"With regard to the high proportion of construction waste undermining the landfill life cycle argument the answer is: Not necessarily."
The specific answer with regard to Hong Kong? "As we haven’t undertaken a study of the local situation [Lundell is currently concentrating its efforts further afield in China and the Philippines] we do not know what kind of payback levels could possibly be derived from such a scheme here.
"Anyway, as I understand it, the EPD (Environmental Protection Department) is currently exploring the ways and means of utilizing more construction waste for land reclamation projects. A study definitely needs to be done though, outside of the prohibitive land costs. It may just be possible to reconcile the equation."
Sounds like a good idea? Well, such a study is being done. HKL wondered whether any of the 27 member team of consultants at ERM, (Environmental Resources Management) Hong Kong’s largest environmental consultancy group, were considering the Lundell System in their US$1.2 million consultative document A Waste Reduction Study to be presented to David Wong, executive director of the EPD.
The answer? No.
"Of course we would have liked to have participated in the study," says Artz. "When we contacted ERM, they expressed an interest as well. Unfortunately, since we learnt of each other only through you, and the report is due to be submitted later this month, it may be too late."
It seems Lundell has been "left outside the loop," as they say in Californian parlance. How did this happen? In an earlier interview, Artz mentioned that the government had been less than enthusiastic about considering the Lundell system —initial difficulties in obtaining operating estimates of the composition of the local waste stream seemed to indicate a counter productive policy of stone walling — is this why Lundell was not put in contact with ERM, and also why the company has not been more active in pursuing business in Hong Kong?
"Wait, this is misleading," says Artz. "I should clear up any allegations of stonewalling, the difficulties we first encountered were merely a result of the EPD’s peculiar administrative process. The EPD, as it turns out, is actively encouraging environmentally oriented private enterprise to undertake feasibility studies and generate solutions, after all, it’s in their and the community’s best interests.
"Also, we may have missed opportunities vis a vis the United States. Asia Environmental Partnership (US-AEP) and the Centre for Environmental Technologies (CET), which we have just learnt are among some of the many channels established to facilitate just this sort of exchange of environmental technologies.
"The reason we seem to be ‘left out of the loop’ is probably due to the fact that we could only afford to allocate a limited time to putting out feelers here, as a consequence, it seems we underestimated Hong Kong’s willingness to consider alternatives."
HONG Kong is indeed interested in exploring solutions. The ERM report is an example of this process. According to ERM’s technical director, Paul Fletcher, the group is looking at a wide range of options, apparently schemes similar to Lundell’s.
"The report sounds like it would be especially useful for us," says Artz. "It is particularly difficult to work out all the variables in a complex site like Hong Kong. One of our concerns in Hong Kong, for example, is that the cost of generating power from refuse derived fuel pellets (RDF) may not turn out to be cost-effective given the nature of the existing energy infrastructure. To work something like that out, we would need a hell of a lot of information and feedback."
Is this one of the reasons why integrated waste separation companies tend to concentrate their marketing efforts in areas that have not yet invested in large-scale energy infrastructure projects?
"Yes, that’s certainly the case with us," admits Artz. "Just across the border are vast areas experiencing tremendous shortages of power; they are always experiencing blackouts. In the absence of complex variables, they are able to immediately assess our value. They need power, they need to deal with their wastes and we are able to provide an answer to both demands in a single installation."
Sixteen major sites in Asia, including China, that make use of Lundell’s RDF pellets — which burn hotter and cleaner than coal — are currently at the negotiating table stage.
It is easy to see the value. To begin with, for some countries, the RDF pellets could help reduce imports of coal: The cost of processing unrecyclable paper refuse into energy pellets, at US$45 a tonnes (it would probably be a lot less considering the labor differential Asia) contrasts favorable with the cost of importing coal, at around US$60-110 per tonnes.
Even China, with an estimated seventeen percent of the world’s coal, could benefit: China could minimize its utilization of lower, more polluting, grades of coal. Of the three greenhouse gases both sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions could be eliminated — though C02 would still remain as a problem.
Considering that no new installations would need to be built — Lundell claims their energy pellets can be used in existing installations —the equation becomes even more attractive. Apart from energy recovery, which may not be that attractive a technology in a site that already possess a sophisticated energy infrastructure, are there any other factors that would entice local policy makers to look at this program?
"It is hard to say without conducting a study," cautions Artz. "Remember, our focus is outside of Hong Kong. And, we are not even sure whether energy pellets should be factored out of the equation, it may still turn out to be quite a good idea. But with regard to recovering certain materials, the plastic component in particular — the Lundell system separates the different varieties of plastics such as PVC, PBS, PET and LDP in order to achieve a higher grade of plastic resin i.e., plastics that have a higher resale value — recent market developments may have swung the equation more conclusively in our favor."
Manufacturers have heretofore chosen to rely on virgin supplies of plastic materials, due to their incredibly low cost. Recently, however, certain grades of plastic refuse have taken a jump in resale value due to the industry-wide rise in the price of DOP —DOP is a plasticizer, an essential component in the manufacturing process of new plastics.
The price of DOP has risen dramatically over the last six months, from US$600 dollars a tonnes to over US$2,000, due to a drop in supply. The cause? Rumors say that a major plant in India had to discontinue production during the recent plague scare. Other industry analysts claim that the real cause is due to the closure of major plants in Germany due to environmental concerns.
Either way, the incentives to recover high grade plastic waste have now become overwhelmingly monetary rather than purely environmental, legislative or moral.
Plastic is not the only material that has suddenly become more attractive in the nineties.
For instance, the spot market price for a bone-dry ton of wood chips, which used to range from US$20 to US$60, jumped to more than US$111 the year before last and as a result, certain grades of paper refuse have also registered, and maintained, a rise. Legislation is also forcing demand: in California, newspapers used 25 percent recycled stock by 1992, it will be 50 percent by 2000.
Artz says: "Another factor to consider is that the waste stream in Hong Kong is actually getting ‘better’ on a daily basis." Why? Because of the number of companies that have relocated to China. "In most cases," explains Artz, "when a core industry moves offshore, the supporting industries move as well and as a result, the proportion of the waste stream that is cleaner, that is, non-toxic and recyclable, is increasing."
RECYCLING is already popular. According to the EPD, around 600 small private recycling companies have already absorbed the high end of the market for recyclable materials.
In terms of volume, this means that about thirty percent of Hong Kong’s waste stream is annually recovered, most of it to be exported for recycling overseas. In terms of value, this informal system brought in more than HK$2.2 billion in export earnings last year.
This can be seen as both an advantage and a disadvantage: Why would the government — an integrated waste separation/reduction scheme would only be feasible via the active intervention and assistance of the government vis a vis land subsidy — want to disrupt a system that appears to be demonstrating an awareness that "One man’s rubbish can be sold as another man’s treasure?"
This is exactly the principle behind the Private Sector Committee on Environment Centre’s new information exchange service that seeks to match waste generators with appropriate users (recyclers).
The PSCEC’s custom-designed database program, the Waste Exchange/Recycling Information Service (WERIS) will not only facilitate recycling, it will, in conjunction with the planned imposition of surcharges for sewage, chemical waste and landfill facilities further encourage companies to seek out recyclers in an attempt to defray the disposal costs.
That’s not to say there are no shortfalls. Analysts say private enterprise cannot absorb the less glamorous components of the waste stream without subsidy. Post-consumer waste in particular, for example, cannot be addressed through the existing informal system due to the high level of cross contamination present in mixed refuse.
Source separation — sorting refuse before it enters the waste stream — which is critical to any viable waste recovery system, has yet to be realistically promoted by the government; the trial periods of some programs have been too short to evaluate the public’s willingness to separate at source, especially as the programs have been voluntary.
Two years ago residents at City One, Sha Tin, for example, were given only between May 16 to July 18, to separate recyclables from other wastes. The 1993 project, organized by the Regional Council with the assistance of the estate management company and the Owners’ Association demonstrated one thing, people simply don’t have the time to voluntarily think about waste separation, it takes years for source separation to become a habit.
It shouldn’t be a matter of whether the public will do this (separate waste) but rather: "Let’s start now, so that we can get it right for later." New apartments, for example, should be designed to incorporate shutes for recyclables.
Another factor: Small recycling companies tend to be vulnerable to fluctuating markets. In some cases, by the time the price for a particular resource has recovered, the companies that could have benefited have long since disappeared. An integrated system not dependent on any one resource would on the other hand, be better able to absorb seasonal and market fluctuations.
In the case of Concordia, the territory’s leading paper recycler, an integrated system would actually help that company maintain supplies. They were experiencing a shortage of high grade paper refuse earlier this year.
Seems like a good idea. Selling recyclable materials, composting and recovering energy from refuse not only provides a healthy revenue stream for the user — not to mention the opportunity cost of extending the life cycle of existing landfill sites — it means that the community is actually able to deal with its waste problem instead of merely burying or burning it and hoping it will go away
ARTZ believes the strongest argument against private enterprise setting up a full, multi-material, modular waste recovery system is that land costs are too high, hence the need for government subsidy in this regard.
How much subsidy? According to Artz, the degree of assistance that the government should allocate to the land issue should be equal to the opportunity cost of prolonging the life of existing landfills.
Whether the government is prepared, or whether it should dip into its land bank during such a critical time, prior to the’97 handover, is another question open to debate.
Two other factors argue against Lundell. First, the EPD estimates that thirty percent of the waste stream is already being diverted by recyclers. Secondly, the Lundell system would impact on municipal waste only. Construction waste would still remain a problem that would have to be addressed independently. Both these factors seem to work together to undermine the landfill life cycle argument. If the system works it will be due to a smaller margin of effectiveness than would be possible anywhere else.
Miss Chung, a PhD Candidate at the Civil & Structural Engineering Department of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, having had a cursory look at the Lundell system, also thinks the land costs should be the least of Lundell’s worries: "Land is admittedly expensive, but collection systems and labor costs are also prohibitively high. The cost of waste collection (carried out by the two municipal councils) is currently a few times more than the land filling cost on a weight basis."
The other barriers to the project, says Miss Chung, are institutional: "Waste collection and waste treatment are at the moment separately carried out by two different government bodies, namely the Municipal Councils (plus their corresponding Services Departments) and the Environmental Protection Department. Neither of them wants to infringe into the other’s area of duty."
In order to create the appropriate conditions for a system like Lundell to exist, both parties would have to work with the same vision. Is this a problem? "Well, considering that the Councils have to maintain a tab on quite a wide range of issues other than waste management, yes, as this can sometimes result in a dilution of responsibilities. A lot needs to be done."
The bottom line? What may turn out to be a admirable solution to one of Hong Kong’s many environmental problems has yet to be properly presented and evaluated and time is running out. The better bottom line? The system appears to have a very real applicability in areas that have less complex constraints.
Meanwhile, if your company or estate manager has a sizable amount of waste that you think can be recycled call the EPD recycling hotline on: 2-835-1233
Source : Sunday Standard Magazine, Hong Kong life, March 26 1995
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