Yano J.; Sakai S. (2014) Proceedings of 3RINCs and SWAPI 2014, pp. 1B-2-02
ABSTRACT
The 3R (reduce, reuse, and recycle) approaches to food waste management have been strongly promoted throughout the world. In Japan, many aging incineration facilities will have to be renewed in the near future. Therefore, to evaluate municipal solid waste (MSW) management strategies over the mid- and long-term, we estimated the amount of energy recovery that could potentially be achieved through the introduction of anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities in Japan. A total of four scenarios were considered for this renewal and compared with the current situation. In two of the scenarios, only an incineration facility was constructed, while in the other two, an AD facility was constructed in addition to the incineration facility. Compared with the situation as of 2011, there can be a 37% increase in the amount of electricity generated by 2020 and a 64% increase by 2030 by combining AD facilities for food waste with new high-efficiency incineration facilities for the remaining MSW. This produced electricity could also contribute to a reduction of 1.2 million t-CO2/yr in 2020 and 2.1 million t-CO2/yr in 2030. Most household food waste is not currently used for energy recovery. Thus, from the viewpoint of energy recovery and greenhouse gas reduction, AD would be an attractive treatment method for local municipalities for waste that is not easy to incinerate for energy.