MBT Studies
Major UK study into the Mechanical / Biological Treatment of Waste
| Applicant | Juniper |
|---|---|
| ENTRUST Category | C |
| County | |
| Date of Approval | January 2004 |
| Grant Offered | £255,828 |
Is MBT the Solution to Meeting Waste Management Targets in the UK?
A major report on the Mechanical-Biological-Treatment of Waste is now available. The report, which was funded by SITA Trust, was published on 22 March 2005. Almost 300 representatives attended a launch seminar of the report at Imperial College, London. You can download the report now.
What is MBT?
MBT is an established waste treatment method in continental Europe, where processes are employed to reduce the quantity of waste sent to landfill and to increase the potential recovery of resources from waste. Regulatory restrictions on landfill space, the search for alternatives to incineration, and increased costs of landfill disposal in countries such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland, have been the major drivers for the development of MBT.
Since the early 1990s MBT processes have changed significantly, so today, numerous concepts exist. The MBT method is basically a "waste splitting concept", which is a combination of:
* Waste preparation and separation;
* Recovery of two or more streams for further utilisation or landfill disposal.
An MBT process can be:
* The combination of mechanical separation with a biological process, such as in-vessel composting or anaerobic digestion, or;
* Fully-integrated, innovative turnkey solutions employing one or more mechanical and biological stages.
In an MBT process, waste is sometimes dried. This occurs when a biological process is carried out first and performs a drying function. This is followed by the mechanical separation elements that produce the material product streams.
MBT processes produce a waste stream (the "residual fraction") which can either be:
* used as a soil-improver;
* sufficiently stabilised to allow safe disposal to landfill, or;
* used as a fuel for energy recovery.
Study Overview
The study is being carried out by specialist consultancy, Juniper. Further support has come from ASSURRE, based in Brussels, and comprises the following:
* A review of international MBT technologies and processes
* An appraisal of national policy and economic incentives favouring MBT technologies
This is the first detailed appraisal of the many different MBT technologies that are currently in operation. The findings will be reported using technical, environmental and commercial criteria, including provenness, bankability, landfill diversion and the marketability of the resources recovered. The aim is to provide a reference document that compares the performance of all the principal commercial MBT systems.
Since many MBT systems of these processes originate from Continental Europe, an important part of the project will be to evaluate the performance of major facilities in
More Information see the Juniper website.
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