Tag: Sustainable Solid Waste Systems

The W Hotel implemented sustainable elements and best practices at their 404 room hotel in San Francisco.

A power plant was constructed on the site of Toronto’s primary waste landfill to convert captured methane gas into electricity providing power for roughly 24,000 homes.

In June 2004, King County launched a two-year project to test whether it could generate 1 MW of electricity from a fuel cell power plant powered by digester gas—a byproduct of anaerobic digestion of wastewater solids. The project, located at the 80-acre South Wastewater Treatment Plant southeast of Seattle, was the first commercial megawatt-scale project of its kind. In addition to generating electricity without combustion and the resultant air pollution, the high-temperature (molten carbonate) direct fuel cell unit also delivered a useful heat byproduct.

Gothenburg’s system of incinerating waste to make electricity and heat is highly efficient. Benchmarked against other European countries, the system compares very favorably, generating 3.3 MWh per ton of waste for heating (27% of the city) and electricity, reducing landfill to a small fraction of the total waste collected, and cutting emissions by over 200,000 tCO2 annually. By generating energy from waste, 25% of the City’s CO2 emissions from energy consumption have been cut.

Hong Kong is extracting gas from landfill sites to help reduce the use of fossil fuels in town gas production process. There will be an annual reduction of use of up to 43,000 tonnes of naphtha in the process, which will lead to a reduction of up to 135,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission per year.