2. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
Contents
Preface ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Disclaimer................................................................................................................................... 3
New Waste Technologies: Recycling and Creating Energy from Waste on the Way to “Zero
Waste” ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction............................................................................................................................ 4
What is Recycling and Source Separation.................................................................................. 6
Source Separation .................................................................................................................. 6
Mechanical Sorting of Household Refuse .............................................................................. 7
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 8
MRFs - Materials Recovery Facilities and the New Waste Technologies .................................. 9
A Discussion of Advanced Thermal Treatment of Residual Municipal Waste by Gasification
and Pyrolysis ............................................................................................................................ 11
The Selection of New Waste Technologies as an Alternative to Incineration......................... 13
Energy From Waste by Incineration Now Acceptable Since EU WID Emissions Clean Up ...... 16
Waste Management Jobs ........................................................................................................ 20
Cover image: Paper ready for recycling or for use as fuel, after the plastic has been
separated out from Tetrapak type food containers.
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3. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
Preface
This document is a compilation of articles I have written since 2007, and
which have been published at the EzineArticles.com web site to promote
the IPPTS Associates web site www.waste-technology.co.uk .
This eBook is offered as background reading for those that are new to the
waste and resource management business sector. I think that you will
find that the industry is as “green” in the sense of sustainability as they
come, and getting better all the time.
The information is based on United Kingdom, and EU practise and
experience, but is also generally of interest worldwide.
Steve Last
Disclaimer
Reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information presented
in this book is accurate. However, the reader should understand that the
information provided does not constitute legal or professional advice of
any kind. The content shall be used for educational and light reading
purposes only.
No Liability: this book is supplied “as is” and without liability.
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4. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
New Waste Technologies: Recycling and Creating Energy from Waste
on the Way to “Zero Waste”
Introduction
Many governments, towns and communities throughout the Western
world are making new rules concerning the treatment of Municipal Solid
waste (MSW). New concepts of waste management are needed in which
the idea of recycling is of major importance.
Incineration will be used for the easily burnable fraction of what cannot be
recycled, and for some kinds of hazardous wastes such as hospital waste,
while the left over will be disposed of in sanitary MSW landfills.
Over time, more and more waste avoidance / minimisation, re-use,
recycling and pre-treatment prior to landfill will take place, with “zero
waste” being the goal. The “rottable” (putrescible) organic content will
also be progressively reduced and regulations will increasingly ban many
materials from being landfilled at all.
The recycling of products is best done at source by the public when they
put their waste out for collection and this is called source separation.
However, if the waste is mixed up when collected it can still be separated
again by mechanical separation plants or by hand picking using human
labour and a conveyor.
The plants in which the separation of mixed wastes (and also nowadays
quite often on segregated waste as well) is carried out are usually called
Mechanical Biological Treatment Plants, or MBTs. These plants cost a lot
to build, are expensive to run. They also use a lot of power and add
vehicle miles, which reduces the value of recycling by expending non-
renewable energy in the process.
The last decade has seen source separation introduced in many countries,
especially in Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria
and Canada. Now, more recently source separation is being implemented
in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe now that European Waste
Regulations require so much of the MSW produced not to be landfilled.
The most important reasons to separate waste at the source are:
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5. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
- The difficulty to find sites for new landfills and the negative attitude
of the public towards landfilling and incinerating.
- Source separation improves the quality of the products which will
have to be recycled. The fact that the organic fraction is separated
from the inorganic fraction means that the organic fraction will
have a low concentration of heavy metals and will be free of
metals, glass and stones, while the inorganic fraction will be drier
and less dirty.
The degree of recycling which can be achieved depends of the system
used for source separation but it is the highest if the separated waste is
picked up at the houses in separate containers.
A high percentage of recycling can only be achieved though by recycling
the organic fraction of MSW whereby anaerobic techniques such as the
anaerobic digestion process are very promising since they not only
produce a humus-like residue, comparable to the compost produced in
aerobic conversion techniques, but also a form of energy, biogas, which
can be easily upgraded to several forms of valuable energy.
So, by you source separating your waste you can make a difference -
especially if there is an Anaerobic Digestion plant in your area.
Why not find out more about waste technologies, and encourage your
friends to recycle. Your children and later generations will benefit - don't
they deserve the same opportunities you had?
Very many people wish there was “zero waste” but to achieve that
everyone will need to help their local authorities, by sorting and wherever
possible recycling, at home.
Steve Last is a regular contributor of waste management related articles.
Visit http://www.waste-technology.co.uk , the Waste Technology Web
Site to find out more.
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6. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
What is Recycling and Source Separation
What is recycling? It is the process by which materials are collected and
used as "raw" materials for new products.
There are three steps in recycling: 1. Materials are collected. 2. Materials
are processed and manufactured into new products. 3. Consumers
purchase the goods made with reprocessed materials.
Materials are either source-separated and collected, or collected without
segregation. The latter is often called residual or “black-bag” waste, due
to the colour of the bags used in most countries.
Before we go any further though, we should consider what the average
typical analyses of household refuse in the UK might contain. Detailed
lists are available on the web for the contents of these bins and wheelies,
but in short, the components can be classified as putrescibles, paper,
glass, plastics, metals, textiles, unsorted fines, and unclassified material
The largest quantities are of paper (and card), and the putrescible
fractions, and together these contribute most of the organic matter and
moisture content of the waste. Plastics make up a large and increasing
proportion of the volume.
Another contributor to waste is Household Recycling Centre or Civic
Amenity Site waste. Civic amenity waste contains large and variable
proportions of wood and garden wastes, building rubble, furniture and
miscellaneous large objects.
Source Separation
Source separation recycling schemes are the lowest cost, and most
sustainable and are preferred. They are likely to concentrate on the easily
recognisable metal, glass and plastics fractions to provide clean
feedstocks for recycling. Together with household waste these can be
assumed to comprise about a quarter of the wet weight and a similar
proportion of the dry weight of the refuse.
The paper fraction comprises mostly newsprint, which is easily separated
but difficult to recycle economically as there tends to be more paper
available from recycling than is used by industry. The glut which results
depresses the value of the recycled material. (Written in 2007 – not so
true in 2012.)
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7. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
So, markets for recycled materials (recylates) are relatively limited and
source separation will only be effective for a proportion of the wastes, and
it will not be suitable everywhere.
Some inner city areas find that certain groups of people are reluctant to
participate in recycling, no matter what incentives are given, and some
property types make recycling harder. Older flats for example have only a
single rubbish chute.
This means that in most areas if recycling is to be taken much above 15%
to 20%, additional separation of the waste will be needed. This is called
mechanical sorting, and carried out in MRFs (Materials Recycling Facilities)
and these may also be called MBT (Mechanical Biological Treatment)
Plants when they include a method for biologically treating the putrescible
(organic) content after mechanical sorting. (Just above 40% recycling is
currently being achieved on average in the UK.)
Mechanical Sorting of Household Refuse
This is usually done to increase the proportion of material which is
separated, and very many of these sorting plants will be needed in the
next few years to achieve EU targets for improved and much higher
recycling rates above 40%.
Mechanical Sorting can also be undertaken to recover additional
recyclable materials not already separated at source, or simply to provide
a better feedstock for incineration or production of refuse-derived fuel.
Dry pulverising and screening is the most common to provide a crude
separation into an oversize combustible "paper and plastics" fraction and
an undersize "putrescible and glass" fraction for anaerobic digestion or
conventional composting. Wet pulverising will direct more of the paper
into the "putrescible and glass" fraction.
Density separations and air-classification techniques can further separate
and concentrate the heavy glass and light plastics to provide improved
materials recovery and a wider range of recovered products, and there is
a "trade-off" between product quality and the yield of any selected
fraction.
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8. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
Conclusion
There is a rapidly increasing demand for expansion of the waste industry,
and even if the public do their best to recycle, we will have to carry out
more and more sophisticated waste separation as the target rates rise.
This will be achieved by source separation and by mechanical separation
techniques in facilities called MRFs and MBT Plants. In fact these plants
will include a wide variety of processes of which we have only touched the
tip of the iceberg in this article, and which are described in detail at Waste
Technology and Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT).
Another Waste Technology is Anaerobic Digestion. See our site at The
Anaerobic Digestion Community. http://anaerobic-digestion.com
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9. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
MRFs - Materials Recovery Facilities and the New Waste Technologies
A MRF, which is in fact (when described in full), a Material Recovery
(Recycling) Facility. It is a waste disposal facility that separates the
recyclable material before it is sold on and recycled, and as far as possible
waste is diverted away from landfill disposal.
You can expect to hear about more and more Material Recycling Facilities
being built. As MRFs come in many different shapes and sizes and are
each tailored to their local wastes and markets, they are described in
different ways. This can be especially seen in press releases where the
aim is to keep the statements simple.
I recently saw this announcement:-
“The MRF is the first automated paper sorting plant in the UK. High-tech
equipment is calibrated to produce only fibres which are acceptable to the
newsprint manufacturing industry, from such materials as cardboard, Yellow
Pages and the Financial Times, and reject all others.”
I would suggest that any Material Recycling Facility is more than that, and
recycle many more materials although the ability of this particular plant to
do this is to be applauded.
Any MRF must be able to accept what is collected from the public and/or
industry and separate “waste fractions” from it into individual streams of
recycled materials before anything else can be done, as none of these
wastes will even closely approach just being pure recycled materials.
This is the case even if they have been segregated at source by
homeowners or businesses, and there will be many "contrary" items to be
removed. Such wastes even if pre-sorted will usually also be “co-mingled”
when picked up at the kerbside, for example glass with tin cans etc, to
simplify collection requirements and keep collection costs down.
Recycling not only reduces the amount of rubbish we bury in landfill sites,
it also makes better use of resources and raw materials. Much of what we
throw away will increasingly be used to make something else and
materials such as glass, steel and aluminium can be recycled over and
over again without losing any of their properties.
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Recycling uses much less energy and raw materials than making new
products.
More and more materials are becoming suitable for recycling as well. For
example, plastic and polythene bags and mailing wrappers can be sent for
recycling in some areas. Did you know that plastic bottles end up as
fleeces, or black plastic pipes and gutters!
It is better known to the public that newspapers with 30% of magazines
in their content, (to provide the whitening clay needed,) go to make more
newspapers.
Until recently black plastic could not be mechanically separated by the
sensors in recycling equipment because they could not “see” black. These
and many other advances are being developed month by month,
unknown to the public.
There are many more examples. But, don't forget that almost none of this
can happen unless these materials pass through a Material Recycling
Facility. With such an un-romantic name the humble MRF can get
forgotten, along with the dedicated and hard working staff which operate
them. If so, that would be a shame.
Now you have read this article you will not be one of those ignorant of the
important role of the MRF in your district. In fact waste management is
far from a boring subject, and there are rapid developments in the
technology and large expansion plans taking place right now.
There many new “ green” ideas and new opportunities to discovery
in the new Waste Technologies. Find out more about what MRFs are, plus
you will learn about many other types of waste technology at www.waste-
technology.co.uk .
These exciting new technologies will help ensure a sustainable
future for society, and the health of future generations.
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11. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
A Discussion of Advanced Thermal Treatment of Residual Municipal
Waste by Gasification and Pyrolysis
New services and products are constantly coming online. It's hard to keep
up with them all. Many of us are busy, and need to allocate our time to
our daily lives.
We do not have time to consider the many new products. To head off
being bothered by the low-quality ones we very often just ignore them all,
feeling there's little or nothing worthwhile at hand. Normally we're right.
There are exceptions, however...
There are sometimes a very few that may be promising, might be
worthwhile. For example, there's a product within the area of gasification
and pyrolysis for residual Municipal Solid Waste Treatment which is left
over after minimization of waste generated, re-use of waste, and
recycling. It is in the category, referred to as Advanced Thermal
Treatment. Also, the technology is described as “advanced thermal
conversion” but it essentially means a system that combines the
processes of pyrolysis, gasification and high temperature oxidation, and it
is one that shows quite a lot of promise.
It's been dreamed-up and demonstrated by waste management
professionals and entrepreneurs along with other new waste technologies
by small new innovating companies such as Compact Power, in
Avonmouth, UK. (2012 - Now sold and merged as part of a larger
organisation further developing such technologies.)
So, what have advanced thermal treatment engineers been doing to build
awareness and extend its list of client customers? Well, generally it has
been especially difficult since 2008 to get further projects funded, due to
a lack of government incentives to the industry to encourage innovative
waste technologies.
Specifically, one can find three substantial benefits that set advanced
thermal treatment, with pyrolysis, gasification and high temperature
oxidation apart from the competition, 3 particular benefits stand-out that
originators cite as being excellent.
These 3 beneficial aspects are:
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12. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
- that there is very little waste that needs to be landfilled after this
process,
- emissions are much more controllable from the smaller advanced
thermal treatment plants that the supplier offers, and
- low odour production, very good (high percentage) waste mass
reduction, small footprints suitable for location on industrial
estates.
Listed below are the specifics on each:
• odour is controlled by carrying out all odour producing activities in a
covered building
• high waste reduction is achieved because a high percentage of the
material is combusted
• small footprint local plants will be much easier to obtain planning
permission for.
O.K. So that's the positive side. What exactly is there regarding the
negative side for advanced thermal treatment? What type of weaknesses?
The primary end-user complaint that we've noticed is high cost, and plant
breakdowns experienced with teething problems in such innovative
prototype plants.
Finally, advanced thermal treatment (which is also described by some as
advanced thermal conversion) combines the processes of pyrolysis,
gasification and high temperature oxidation.
A lot of purchasers seem to have made the judgement that it is not really
worth its cost. For anybody who has use for its capabilities though, and if
there was more government encouragement and incentives, it would
probably be an excellent investment. It is worth many local authorities
taking a closer look.
Realize the best way to understand the large integrated waste
management investment projects now underway in the UK, to comply
with EU waste management related regulations at this Advanced-
Thermal-Technology web site at www.gasification4energy.com .
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13. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
The Selection of New Waste Technologies as an Alternative to
Incineration
To have success it's essential to prepare yourself well, set clear
objectives, work effectively and persevere. Whichever task or project you
choose, this tends to be true, but for new waste technology projects this
is particularly true, due to the difficult problems faced.
But, it's not that difficult really, if you break it into clear individual steps
as we have done in the article which follows.
This is the one and only way to achieve success at your goal to promote
new waste technologies as an alternative to incineration, and suggest it
can be simplified to merely 5 simple steps:
Step 1. For a UK alternative to incineration to be viable it will need to be
good at the diversion of waste from landfill. Most importantly the
diversion of organic/biological waste from landfill, to meet European
Union targets.
You will need to consider what are these technologies and how will they
help to meet LATS regulation set for each local authority by central
government to ensure that the UK as a whole will meet recycling targets.
This will be a task of critical importance because the introduction of the
Landfill Allowances Trading Scheme (LATS) in April 2005 has left all local
authorities with key decisions to make in terms of how they are going to
divert enough biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) from landfill to meet
their LATS targets.
Most UK local authorities have been using incineration after recycling and
diverting all but their residual waste, but alternatively they could
introduce new waste technologies into their waste management process
stream.
However, as we have shown this type of solution brings with it a number
of questions. Not least, as we have already indicated we must ask what
are these technologies and how will they help to meet LATS?
Make sure you do not overlook or by-pass this, because answering these
questions is essential to select a viable new waste technology, and the
stakes are high as unless the local authority meets its LATS target, it will
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14. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
be fined by the UK government. And, if nationally we do not meet the
targets overall, the EU will fine us as a nation.
Step 2. Any adoption of a new waste technology must be able to
satisfactorily answer the question; What are the residuals and are there
markets for these? This important step demands all your attention.
Here is the way to do it right: Make sure that you select a new waste
technology from which the residuals can be sold, if not at a profit, at a
price which helps pay for the extra cost of the waste technology which will
process the waste.
There are a few reasons this is often important. The principal one is no
new waste technology will be acceptable to the public and comply with
LATS, or as a financial proposition, unless it produces residual materials
which have a value and don't in the end have to be landfilled for the want
of an alternative disposal route.
Step 3. Decide who will invest in the technologies. The reason for this will
be to that a private partner will be needed to implement any new waste
technology, as the Council won't have the skills or money to go it alone.
Additionally you will want to make sure that the partner is a solid and
reliable company which holds the necessary skills and will pass the
government's tests for the award of public investment, once the project
gets started.
Step 4. Consider, whether the technologies receive planning permission,
how long will this take and what are the issues likely to hinder this
process.
That means, talking to the local authority planning experts and gauging
public opinion in the area.
Step 5. How will the public perceive these technologies? Are they likely to
create huge public debate? Also, will the preceding issues in combination
with the last question all add up to a large list of unknowns which make
embarking upon the promotion of new waste technologies too risky for
the local authority to carry out. After all, it is not their role to speculate in
new technologies that are largely unproven and may not work, potentially
developing prototype plants and causing wastage of ratepayers money.
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Additionally, how do you get all those who are required to play a key role
in the decision-making process suitably informed to perform their roles
effectively?
Finally, if you have followed the above suggestions closely, you can
expect to triumph over the down sides and achieve your goals. But, is it
any wonder that many local authorities baulk at the difficulty of the task
of taking on an innovative new waste technology solution with all risks of
the newness of these technologies, and instead go for incineration?
Discover how to understand the waste technologies, existing, and
proven like incineration and the new ways to process waste sustainably
by going to our Waste Technology site at www.waste-technology.co.uk .
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Energy From Waste by Incineration Now Acceptable Since EU WID
Emissions Clean Up
Energy-from-Waste should no longer be coupled with outdated concerns
about pollution and in particular the discharge of trace quantities of toxic
substances into the locality around an incinerator. In fact the WID, or to
give it its true name, the European Union Waste Incineration Directive,
acted as an important driver and milestone in the progress of
development of ever better clean-up processes for incineration plants.
Modem Energy-from-Waste plants are equipped with state-of-the-art air
pollution control systems (APC), and they do not any longer impose any
real risk to the environment from emissions. The likes of the dioxin scares
of the sixties and seventies will not be repeated.
EU emission regulations for incinerator have been in-place and strictly
enforced since the implementation of the WID toward the end of the
1990, which was instrumental in setting stringent uniform EU wide
emission limits.
Now nobody can claim that any technological process will ever reach a
completely zero release, but negligible release of the relevant components
in the emissions can be, and is being achieved.
Let me explain a little about how this is being done.
The first approach has been to install what might be called called front-
end techniques. The purpose of these has been to greatly improve the
combustion process, control the cooling phase, and implement abatement
technologies as early in the process as possible. So. modern incineration
technologies are now structured so that the first achievement has been
the avoidance of the conditions, as far as is possible, which create these
toxins within the combustion process.
While some toxins are still produced the amount is greatly minimised. The
second achievement lies in the much improved technology used in the
cleanup process on the flue gases after combustion, as they pass on their
way to the chimney. A wide range of micro-pollutants which are
ubiquitous in the environment and therefore present in all waste materials
are removed at this stage.
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Incinerator bottom ashes are of much reduced mass and volume, but it is
important that these can be processed and disposed of sustainably, after
the result of the combustion process. These contaminants in the ash need
to be characterised carefully. Residual metals may be elevated, for
example. However, again by improving the combustion technology,
modern incinerators do guarantee a very consistent and high quality ash.
It has been most importantly the ability to achieve a reliably full burnout
of the waste, and better control other factors which determine the quality
of the bottom ashes, which has moved forward from the incinerators of
the past, now no longer operating as a result of the WID.
When we are looking at issues surrounding Energy from Waste plant ash
quality and incinerator emissions generally it is also important to maintain
a balanced perspective by considering normal practise and emissions
levels from industrial and domestic combustion. Incinerator emissions
may actually now be much cleaner than their "natural" counterparts.
Also comparing the uses to which today's bottom ashes are being put,
against traditional sources of called "natural" building materials, shows
the superiority of incineration. Energy from Waste Plant bottom ashes are
now being be used, for example, as a substrate for road construction,
where they replace what would otherwise be freshly quarried material.
A number of countries which are known for their progressive
environmental policies have recognised that modern Energy-from-Waste
(EfW) plants can be effective tools in reducing dioxins levels, and large
numbers of new EfW plants are planned and being built.
Now, for any government or waste authority to put an over reliance on
one waste treatment method would be dangerous. The other EU Waste
Directives recognise this and incineration clearly can and must only be
implemented as just one of the many waste technologies, which must be
developed in each area to implement the so called "waste hierarchy". The
intent of this is to ensure that options such as incineration, and ultimately
landfilling as well, only come into play when all materials that can be
disposed by other more sustainable methods, such as re-use and
recycling, have already been applied to those parts of the waste flow
which can be segregated out into those preferable waste streams.
This is the ultimate solution (if good competitive markets become
established in these materials), to the issue of handling MSW in an
economical and sustainably sensible way. From this realisation, has in
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18. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
recent years, emerged the concept of Integrated Waste Management
(IWM).
IWM is the integration of different waste treatment methods to achieve
the greatest combination of environmental and economic efficiency.
Integrated Waste Management allows each of the established and many
new and emerging waste treatment and disposal methods to be used
when and where they are most valuable and can make the greatest
contribution.
IWM endorses the major principles of waste prevention and its
practitioners value optimised recovery from what is in reality unavoidable
waste, by diversion from landfill such as by materials recycling,
composting, and Energy-from-Waste, and finally but only as a last resort
- the landfilling of waste.
Landfill, which was for so long the accepted most likely destiny for waste
has now become firmly downgraded to being considered the least desired
option, throughout the EU.
In many EU member states the planning for waste management is within
the legal authority of the regions, sub-regions and other devolved public
bodies. While at the turn of the twentieth century it would have been rare
to find regions or even municipalities which had a fully integrated
management plan. Quite the reverse is now true.
It is the case now that very ambitious targets have been set for
increasing the rate of recycling, and reducing the amount of waste sent to
landfill. Furthermore, strict targets have also been set for continually
reducing the organic content of all wastes sent to landfill.
Almost without exception, all local waste disposal authorities have been
forced to take action on waste. Furthermore, any that do fail to take
action will soon incur heavy fines from the EU. These will be payable by
the local citizens, if they fail to meet the diversion targets in their area.
Steve Evans is a waste management professional of more than 20 years
experience, working throughout the UK. The waste technologies which are
commonly used within integrated waste management policies are detailed
on his leading web site which explains all the main waste technologies,
such as mechanical biological treatment.
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Waste Management Jobs
Waste management jobs are probably much more varied, and many are
probably better paid than you are probably aware. In the past waste
management jobs were synonymous with the "dustman" (refuse collection
operative) and tip worker. If that is what you think, then you are a long
way out of touch and I would suggest that you might want to consider a
job in the waste management industry.
The old problem with waste management industry jobs in solid waste,
that they were in the most part menial, mostly only suitable for young
men, and low paid, is now a thing of the past due to the increasing
amount of recycling and increasing use of other methods of diversion
away from landfill.
The waste management industry workforce is expending fast to handle
the much more sophisticated methods now being used to recycle and
when recycling is not possible to process and treat the waste people
throw out, to give it a value.
If there is no way to make the waste more valuable due to its nature it
nowadays will often be incinerated in technically complex incineration
plants and these demand skilled labor forces to operate and maintain
them.
The waste management jobs being created in the many new waste
treatment facilities range from those that supervise the operation of the
processing plant to the engineers and administrators that maintain the
equipment and those that handle the many financial transactions in
accepting the waste processing it and being paid for the end products
produced.
Probably the lowest training requirement of all the waste management
jobs being created in these new waste treatment plants are for the
operatives needed to act as pickers on conveyors which carry the source
separated but still mixed (co-mingled) "clean" recycled materials that we
all put in our recycling containers.
Various types of paper are mixed when collected, glass may be collected
with tins, and plastics arrive mixed in all sort of different type of plastic
materials which have a much greater value once separated into separate
types. That is where the pickers come in, and the job is simple and
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21. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
repetitive, lifting out the separate material off a conveyor as the
household recycled material moves past on the conveyor.
The best paid and most sought after jobs will be those of the engineers
and managers who run the operations at each Municipal Solid Waste, and
Commercial and Industrial waste treatment plant whether this be a MRF
(Materials Recycling Facility), an Incinerator (often also called a Energy
from Waste (EfW) Facility, Waste to Energy Plant (WtE), or one of the
other new waste technology plants which include:
• Thermal and mechanical heat treatment plants including MSW
autoclave facilities
• Bio-waste plants including composting facilities and anaerobic
digestion (AD) plants
• Medical waste incinerators and autoclave facilities
• Hazardous waste incinerators
• Construction waste recycling depots
• Commercial recycling plants.
If you are considering a career in the waste management industry I would
encourage you to find out more.
I have worked in the waste management industry, both in the public and
private sector, for over 20 years. I have found it to provide good stable
employment at reasonable pay.
It is as such a rapidly developing industry you can expect new
opportunities to develop and provide for your promotion. These new
opportunities will come both in new ways of doing things, and also from
expansion within the industry as more and more waste is diverted away
from landfills and processed for further use.
I have found that waste management jobs are interesting, and that the
people tend to be straightforward and very friendly. But, perhaps the
biggest recommendation for waste management jobs at present, with the
economy suffering from recession, is that the industry is in general
remarkably well insulated from economic downturns.
If you want to follow up on the idea of a waste management job but you
are concerned that you lack confidence to attend an interview at which
you will most likely be expected to know the basics of modern waste
management methods, I recommend that you visit my web site at
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22. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
Introduction to Waste Technology. This site is well worth a visit for
EVERYONE planning to apply and be interviewed for a waste management
job! Much more invaluable additional reading is available on that site.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Last
We hope that we have kindled your interest in the whole subject
of waste and resource management while reading this eBook.
You are free to pass this eBook on to your friends, but NOT to sell it, and
NOT to copy it and publish it.
If you were charged for this eBook, you should not have been. If you paid
for this you should insist on being given your money back!
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23. A Green Guide to Better Waste Management 2012
If you find this eBook interesting then we think that you are bound to
find our ebook even more so!
"The Secrets Behind the
New Waste Technologies
Revealed"
This ebook includes concise information on each of the most popular waste
technologies, plus easy to understand "material flow charts" for each type of
waste facility.
This practical guide to what the technologies used in each type of waste
facility do, and how they do it, includes the pros and cons of each technology,
and is ideal for anyone who needs a quick introduction to this rapidly
expanding sector of the economy.
Check out what’s on offer at: http://www.ebooks.waste-technologies.co.uk
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