Why there is no incineration in Greece?

A discussion to introduce the Change Ring for Solid Waste Management Systems

Antonis MavropoulosCEO EPEM SAVice President of Hellenic Solid Waste Management Associationamavrop@epem.grhttp://mavropoulos.blogspot.com/

The author is kindly asking everyone to share thoughts and ideas either through his web blog or through e-mail

In European Union (EU), it seems that Waste to Energy (WTE) concepts either in the form of direct incineration of waste or in the form of thermal utilization of secondary fuels are strongly preferred as a mean to fulfil the targets that have been set for Solid Waste Management (SWM) through the famous Landfill Directive EU 99/31 (surprisingly the name of this directive is totally misleading because it is a directive for the elimination of landfills).

Currently approximately 50 million tones of waste are thermally treated each year in about 400 Waste to Energy Plans (WEPs) in Europe. Greece is one of the two EU-15 countries (countries that form the initial core of EU before the latest expansion to eastern countries) that does not incorporate thermal treatment in SWM systems.

So the first question for this article is this one: Why there is no incineration in Greece when thermal utilisation is becoming the main trend in EU countries? I will discuss certain barriers for waste incineration in Greece trying to identify ways to avoid barriers or limit their influence.

Due to space limitations, in this article I will not focus on certain important drivers like EU legislation for SWM, Public – Private Partnership laws, the Climate Change and Energy issues and the most important one the limited landfill space available for big cities. Those drivers are discussed in details in the article “Drivers and Barriers for the application of waste-to-energy technologies in Greece” written by Mavropoulos, Skoulaxinou, Mentzis in ISWA 2007 proceedings (available also at mu blog).

But what is more important is that working on the firtst question we face a second one, clearly much more important: How can we deliver change in waste management? How can we shape our understanding for SWM systems in a way that will provide us the capacity not just to understand the world but also to change it? I will also try to outline a tool for change management in SWM systems and I encourage everyone to share ideas for this neccessary discussion.

A last introductory note is that I strongly believe that there is a usual systematic error when we focus in SWM evolution in different countries and regions. Normally authorities and consultnts try to figure out conclusions from success stories and when there is even a small step forward we demonstrate this to conferences, events etc. But exackly as every human being, SWM systems are getting better only discussing deeply and understanding the failures and the mistakes. That is why the discussion for the failure of incineration in Greece (at least up to now) may provide conclusions and tips with a more general value.

Barriers for incineration in GreeceGreece is not a uniform place. It incorporates mountainous areas and hundreds of islands, high-income tourist places and low-income rural areas as well as highly urbanized cities. The following remarks formulate the SWM landscape for incineration in Greece.

A history barrier: Up to now, there were two remarkable efforts to introduce WTE in Greece. The first one took place at early 90s in Zakynthos Island and it was a complete failure. A small and old-fashioned incinerator was installed and after a short test period it shut down due to big operational as well as environmental problems. In the middle 90s there was another effort to establish a small incineration unit in Thira Island. With a total capacity of 15,000 tones/ year that incinerator was planned to work for 6-7 months per year, while the rest of the period the waste was going to be balled and stored until the next operational period. Although there was a big financial support from EU, local municipalities and the Greek government were not finally persuaded for the feasibility of the project, especially due to high operational cost and limited technical experience of similar projects.

But more importantly the history barrier emerges clearly from the unofficial but effective prohibition of incineration that characterised the SWM Governmental Policy for the years 1985 – 2000.

A political barrier: It is well known that Greek Government was practically against WtE concepts especially in the period 1985-2000. The main reasoning was the high cost and the unsuitability of incineration for the national - local conditions. These political positions in combination with the ecological NGOs attitudes against incineration have created a political barrier that cannot be ignored and sometimes must be considered as remarkable.

There is also another policy mater that makes the introduction of WTE concepts more difficult. Greece lost the opportunity to provide substantial funds for integrated waste management approaches during the 3rd Community Support Framework. With only one exception, only new landfills and transfer stations were eligible. More than 300 million Euros were spent between 2000 -2006 in order to create a total landfill capacity around 2,5 million tones / year.

This political choice drove the most developed and well-organized Waste Management Authorities (WMA) just to expand their landfill capacity, although there were a lot of them that were prepared to build waste treatment units.

The landfill cost barrier: Greece is the first country in the EU in terms of dependence on landfilling and the third in absolute quantities of MSW driven to landfills. The landfill dependence means practically that most of the country citizens and waste management authorities are used in very low operational cost in the range of 8-35 euros/ tone of waste.

Taking into account that the incineration costs are between 100 and 280 Euros/ton of waste it is clear that costs are a big barrier for WtE concepts.

With the exception of the two metropolitan centers (Attica and Thessaloniki) the waste generation figures in the rest of the country require the installation of small capacities waste treatment units, even if they refer to the regional level. Only in cases of interregional waste management system, or in big regions, will the capacities of the waste management units significantly increase and thus related gate fees may become affordable.

An administrative barrier: One more serious problem is that in Greece there is still lack of compliance control measures and institutional development. This situation results in facing the waste management legislation more as a wish and less as an obligation.

In terms of legislative framework, the existing specifications for the WtE facilities were developed in 1997 and hence they do not include recent technological advances. As a result the fact that the WtE technologies have improved their environmental performance in the last years, cannot be identified in these specifications. The fact that even at the EU level, standards for the secondary fuels have not been set yet, restricts further the potential production of secondary fuel from waste.

The WMAs barrier: One of the most important issues for the development of integrated waste management systems in Greece is the Waste Management Authority problem (WMA). Today in Greece there are more than 40 WMAs. Few of them are in a position to provide integrated waste management services while most of them are facing problems of poor technical, financial and institutional capacity. There is a need for the modernization of their legal status and improvement of their human resources in order to be able:

To apply cost efficient gate fees To develop long and medium term business plans To create an efficient framework of cooperation with private sector operators

and waste management companies

The role of GDP in SWM systemsA lot of times, it has been discussed the correlation between SWM and Gross Domestic Product of each country. In order to outline this issue for incineration, 31 European countries were taken as a more representative sample and graphs that correlate GDP forecast of 2008 (in Purchasing Power Standards) and SWM practices (landfill and incineration) were constructed based on EUROSTAT data. The results are presented in Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1: GDP in PPS Vs Landfilling for 31 countries

Although this analysis does not count as an official statistical data acquisition, it is clear that there is a strong negative correlation between GDP growth and Landfilling: the more the GDP the less the landfilled part of SWM. This trend is more obvious if raw data for landfilling is substituted from moving average (period 6) as in Figure 1.

Figure 2: GDP in PPS Vs Incineration for 31 countries

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GDP Vs INCINERATION

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GDP, 2008 forecast Series1 6 per. Mov. Avg. (Series1)

It is also clear that there is a positive correlation between GDP growth and incineration: the more the GDP the more the incineration. Again the trend is more obvious if raw data for incineration is substituted from moving average (period 6) as in Figure 2. There are a lot of similarities for the correlation between Mechanical Biological Treatment development and GDP. Although existing data for the same 31 countries is not complete, it is assumed that there will be a positive correlation between GDP growth and MBT development, although it is expected smoother than the correlation with incineration due to the relative lower costs of MBT.

Instead of conclusions: the Change RingFrom the discussion above, but also from my general experience in 13 different countries in 3 continents, it is clear that all the major SWM issues may be linked with GDP growth, Policy, Know How and History - Culture. Utilizing this remark, the view of the Change Ring is proposed for SWM systems and it is graphically presented in Figure 3.

Figure 3: The Change Ring as a mean to change SWM systems

The Change Ring is an approach that serves as a model for the better understanding of SWM systems and their historical behavior and evolution. According the Change Ring model, GDP is the dominant driver for SWM changes and historically at each GDP level several different SWM systems may correspond. Some of them are better for the environment, some of them are worst. The point of interest is that Policy, History - Culture and Know How in combination create a ring, which defines, finally, the SWM system that will be applied. In other words SWM development is clearly framed by the ring of History-Culture, Policy and Know How.

The role of History and Culture has been discussed a lot also. History – Culture is considered as the main background factor that influences all relative decisions. Additionally, what is new to the Change Ring approach is the emphasis to the failures instead of the main stream of demonstrating successful projects. Discussing about past problems and unsuccessful efforts creates a much more effective environment for the necessary re-engineering of the Waste Management Authorities and governmental bodies. And that costs nothing; it needs just a re-writing of the SWM historical efforts.

PolicyPolicy

HistoryHistoryKnow howKnow how

PolicyPolicy

HistoryHistoryKnow howKnow how

GDPGDPGDPGDP

Policy is clearly the field in which a lot can be delivered shortly. The trick is to drive politicians to focus on the real crucial issues instead of searching solely for investment funds. A strategy, priorities, conditions for funding, implementation plans, fight against fragmentation, Waste Management Authorities framework, tariff systems and step-by-step agenda are the key components to set up an effective policy.

Know - How development and capacity building are, finally, the key elements for the creation of the link between Policy and History, especially in order to create new historical examples that will drive the SWM forward.

Importantly, according our experiences and views even slight, local changes in GDP can result in significant changes in SWM in case Policy, Know How and History parts of the Ring are effectively elaborated.

Instead of waiting for the GDP growth, the Change Ring indicates that pushing Policy measures, Know How development and History - Culture utilization in their limits, changes in SWM are possible. There are a lot of examples where slight regional differences result in completely different SWM systems.

Practical Suggestions The following figure describes the Change Ring application in the problem of incineration in low-income countries. The core idea is to expand the ring as much as possible as a mean to create practical changes under the same – more or less – GDP area and thus to get SWM systems ready to utilize even the slightest GDP growth and jump to another more efficient level.

Figure 4: How to expand the Change Ring and multiply the possible SWM systems

PolicyPolicyStep by step agendaStep by step agenda

Implementation planImplementation plan

Regional planning Regional planning against fragmentationagainst fragmentation

Certain funds Certain funds ––certain conditionscertain conditions

Tariff frameworkTariff framework

End of waste criteria End of waste criteria to increase recyclingto increase recycling

PPPsPPPs

HistoryHistoryFirst stepFirst step

Informal sector: cooperation Informal sector: cooperation instead of competitioninstead of competition

Discuss for failure not for successDiscuss for failure not for success

Social system Social system –– not technicalnot technical

Know howKnow howCapacity building Capacity building instead of studiesinstead of studies

Technology centers Technology centers –– emphasis to low emphasis to low costcost

ISWA ISWA –– ARSARS

Vocational trainingVocational training

CommunicationCommunication