IN THE SOUTH African waste-to-energy space, there are many underutilised opportunities for alternative energy creation, according to integrated waste management solutions company Interwaste.
Interwaste said South Africa alone generated more than 122 million tons of waste a year, equating to about R25.2 billion worth of dumped waste, of which 90 percent was disposed of in over-capacitated landfill sites and only 10 percent of this was recycled.
Kate Stubbs, director of Business Development and Marketing at Interwaste, said last week these were resources that could be fed back into the economy by recycling, repurposing and reusing.
Stubbs said these statistics indicated that the country had a potential waste crisis on its hands demanding urgent attention, but it was also a real opportunity for South Africa to increase its recycling scope.
“The big question is do we have what it takes to manage waste resources effectively and what needs to be done to ensure that we don’t run into a waste crisis?”
Many businesses were already moving towards a zero waste-to-landfill target and examining ways in which they could effectively repurpose waste through the development of technology.
“However, we need public/private partnerships to drive this forward together – it is going to take strong collaboration to truly turn this around. Legislation also plays a fundamental role in driving waste and environmental agendas. Legislation drives innovation, and so, as zero-coal becomes a reality, there will be a much larger offtake of things like refuse-derived fuel, gasification, etc.
“The cost of such alternatives will also become more viable. All these technologies are proven and operational in many countries globally, including South Africa, but we need a collaborative effort to grow them to contribute significantly to our power crisis,” Stubbs said.
Ideally, as more consumers begin to adopt the “nothing wasted” mindset and concern around product sustainability, the new legislation is now pushing corporates and waste managers to be innovative in this space. As a result, the country was seeing a strong drive of this reformative, restorative, and regenerative system, Stubbs said.
Stubbs said waste was a universal issue that presented much broader challenges that affect human health and livelihood, the environment, and, ultimately, the economy.
She said with more than 90 percent of waste being discarded or burned, especially in low-income countries – where many valuable resources were lost – it became crucial for the industry to look at exploring innovative and sustainable solutions to process waste.
Interwaste said South Africa was making strong headway despite still being behind in terms of the global outlook; there was a stronger focus on the environment than ever before.
But Stubbs said the zero waste to landfill goal by 2030 was ambitious.
“If a zero-waste sustainable country is to be achieved, then waste management can no longer be looked at with a linear view.”
Numerous processes can convert waste into energy for the industry, including thermal destruction, which are large waste-to-energy plants found in developed countries.
Stubbs said while, as corporate South Africa, it continued to innovate, the South African government also continued to make commitments to redirect waste from landfills.
New laws had been legislated, and regulations were being rolled out – all aimed at cleaning-up South Africa and reducing the negative environmental and health impacts caused by waste.
For example, the New Extended Producer Responsibility was being implemented, where producers of particular products that ultimately produce waste were required to take responsibility for these products following their sale.
This ensured that from the production stage, the producer was implementing strategies to ensure their products could be reused or recycled wherever possible and input materials were sourced
sustainably and waste was minimised throughout the value chain.
This completely eliminated the throw-away culture, which was still prominent in the country and promoted resilience and long-term sustainability for the local waste sector – encouraging global standards and tackling them with a long-term view that would take South Africa into a green and profitable future.
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