Assessment of waste incineration capacity and waste shipments in Europe
10 Jan 2017
Sigfus Bjarnason
This assessment is split into two thematic parts. Part A focuses on waste incineration capacity in Europe, Part B on the trade in waste for energy recovery.
The objective of Part A is to provide an overview of the current situation in the European Union (EU), Norway and Switzerland, in regard to existing incineration plants for mixed municipal waste and their waste incineration capacity. The focus is on plants that are technically and legally suitable for handling mixed municipal waste without pre-treatment. Due to data and information limitations, the assessment focuses on mixed municipal waste incinerators with and without energy recovery, but excludes co-incineration plants – such as cement kilns, not primarily designed for waste treatment; it also excludes commercial and industrial waste.
The objective of Part B is to provide a statistical overview of waste trade flows for incineration in the EU, Norway and Switzerland. In addition, it examines shipments of waste classified as waste collected from households (Y-46) according to the Basel Convention, as well as mixed municipal waste and combustible waste as defined in the European Waste Catalogue (EWC), based on Eurostat data on waste shipments.
