Latest News

In a complementary measure, landfills should also be outfitted with facilities to monitor and control existing methane emissions. By Nickolas J. Themelis November 09, 2021 Please click here to see the link.

Waste sector critical to combat climate change What role does the waste and resources management sector play in driving actions to achieve net zero? From HELENA NAGELER-PETRITZ First published: 05 November 2021 Click here to see news: https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1049/rpg2.12315

WtERT News September 2021   WtERT-News                    September 2021 To all Friends of WtERT – Supporters of Sustainability! The year of 2021 is an environmentally active year for Turkey Dear Professor Themelis, The year of 2021 is an environmentally active year for Turkey. Within the scope of the Zero Waste project, which was initiated by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization in 2017, institutions have been integrated [...]

"The Scientific Truth about WTE" by Prof. Marco Castaldi (Earth Engineering Center-City College of New York; Chair, WrERT-USA) Please click the below link for the PDF.

China ENFI Engineering Corporation (China ENFI), which has contributed to 30% of Chinese WTE. Please click the below link for watching the video.

The recycling rate of Denmark (52%R+C, 48% WTE, 0% landfilling), is an example that recycling and WTE go hand-in-hand. The new WTE plant in Copenhagen (https://www.copenhill.dk/en/), one of the most beautiful and environmentally-minded cities of the world, serves a dual purpose: Sustainable disposal/use of post-recycling wastes and a first class skiing and surfboarding center. The ash of the Copenhil WTE is processed and used beneficially in civil construction. Engineers send spaceships [...]

The U.S. Should Phase Out Landfilling, as China and the E.U. Are Doing View the original news from this hyperlink. by Nickolas J. Themelis |May 5, 2021 Around the world, economic development has been accompanied by the generation of about 2 billion tons of urban waste each year. The developed nations have put a lot of effort into sorting out recyclable materials, but there are practical and economic limits [...]

Across the EU the legacy of that is an estimated 150,000 to 500,000 historic landfill sites – many not built to today’s sanitary standards. A four-year EU funded project investigate the potential to recover materials, energy and land from these sites concluded. A particularly worrying and rather new risk originates from the effects of accelerating climate change, which is resulting in rising seawater levels, and an increase of flooding, [...]

On September 26, 2018, Prof. Themelis of GWC made a presentation to UN-visiting 1st  Lady of Turkey and to Minister of the Environment, Prof. Birpinar, regarding the potential and benefits of WTE, for Turkey. The good news is that a one-million ton WTE plant is scheduled to start operation in Istanbul later this year. Waste-to-Energy (WTE) plant in Istanbul (by Prof.Dr. Samet Oturk, Bursa Technical University; Chair of WtERT-Turkey) A [...]

Prof. Nickolas Themelis and the Earth Engineering Center at Columbia University, founder of the Global WtERT Council, are proud of our many foreign alumni trained in sustainable waste management. Among the self-destructive regulations implemented by the outgoing US administration, there were seven against students coming to study in the US. In this open letter, Columbia President Bollinger asks President-elect Joe Biden to restore sanity. Please click the below picture to [...]

Newsletter sent by Hedwig Vielreicher, Director WtERT-Germany, on global WtERT activities WtERT-News                    October to December 2020 To all Friends of WtERT – Supporters of Sustainability! Waste Reduction and Final Disposal Dear Professor Themelis, During the EWWR, the European Week for Waste Reduction, which took place this November, a multitude of inspiring ideas and over 10,600 actions to Reuse, Reduce and Recycle were presented. This year´s topic has been invisible [...]

Mr. YURI SCHMITKE A. B. TISI is now the head of WtERT-Brazil. Please see attached two presentations about the Brazilian WTE Market. Click the links in the photos to download the presentation slides.

By Dr. Samet Ozturk (WtERT-Turkey)

Newsletter to WtERT members by Werner Bauer of WtERT-E.U. WtERT-News                    June/July 2020 Broken glass everywhere “It’s like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from going under.”               Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five When I think of Corona, these song lyrics keep coming to my mind. What is actually happening right now? Entire industries are collapsing (aviation, automotive, tourism, meat processing). A [...]

CCS Pilot Phase Successfully Completed Fortum Oslo Varme’s Klemetsrud waste-to-energy (WTE) plant has successfully validated carbon capture technology at its pilot plant. The move is part of Norway’s planned full-scale carbon capture and storage project known as Northern Lights. The Northern Lights plan will use pipelines to gather captured carbon from various industries and bury it under the North Sea in geological storage. The initiative will allow some industries [...]

As public authorities are now planning the post-coronavirus recovery, the European Suppliers of Waste-to-Energy (ESWET) has issued a reminder of the complementary role energy recovery plays to recycling in its comprehensive hygenisation of residual waste. Please click the link for the details.

People do not realize how expensive recycling can be for a city. Have a look at this story. A prior contract expired last month and the city declined to accept a new bid that would have reportedly cost around $200 per ton. Please click the link for the details.

Please click the link for the details.

The European Environment Commission recognizes the importance of WTE power plants is dealing with the COVID-19 wastes. Over the years, the Global WTERT Council has published the fact that over 60 EU plants co-combust medical wastes along with MSW. 31st March 2020 CEWEP welcomes the recognition of waste management as a sector providing an essential service to our society by Virginijus Sinkevičius, the European Environment Commissioner, on the occasion of [...]

The city of Baltimore has one of the best waste management systems in the U.S. (recycling, composting, waste to energy) but the newly elected city officials took the misguided step to push the city back to the 20th century, when landfilling was supreme. Thankfully, the district court struck down their ridiculous ordinance. Please click the link for the details.

Those of you who have not seen the film "Plastic Wars" (PBS Frontline, March 31, 2020; link below), please do: In a nutshell: Only some of the urban paper  is worth recycling. The rest of the so-called recyclables should be left in the MSW going to WTEs where the contained metals are recovered as scrap metals. If the billions of dollars wasted annually in the US, in collecting and [...]

Please see the attached linke to news.

Please click the link to Covanta reports.

Gasification Growing in Waste Processing" (2020/02/07/the-future-of-waste-to-energy-technology.html). Please see the attached link to an interview with me by Katerina Ploumidaki, published in Ethnikos Kirikas (National Herald) of the US/UK last June. Hello K., further to our earlier correspondence, I finally found more tangible information on Sierra Energy and other Gasification processes in the CNBC documentary. It is well done and mentions three processes that have spent , in development, hundreds of million of [...]

Question: Dr. Themelis, Thank you very much for passing this along. The thesis seems to be comparing the health and environmental effects of WTE as compared to landfilling, in which it is determined to be less harmful. However, most of the experts I talk to who are against WTE are in favor of a "zero waste" system that integrates reduction, reuse and recycling as well as composting and "upcycling" to [...]

Municipal (MSW) and other solid wastes contain carbon and hydrogen which, when reacted with oxygen. produce heat. This can be done 1) by controlled combustion of the wastes and using the heat of combustion for generating electricity or for heating. 2) By gasification, whereby partial combustion plus external heating (electricity or fossil fuel) are used to produce a "syngas", consisting of carbon monoxide and hydrogen plus carbon dioxide. The syngas is [...]

WtERT-Chile (http://www.wtert.cl) contributed to the report  Rojas M., P. Aldunce, L. Farías, H. González, P. Marquet, J. C. Muñoz, R. Palma-Behnke, A. Stehr y S. Vicuña (editores) (2019). Evidencia científica y cambio climático en Chile: Resumen para tomadores de decisiones. Santiago: Comité Científico COP25; Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología, Conocimiento e Innovación. http://www.minciencia.gob.cl/sites/default/files/tmp/resumen_mesas_23.pdf . This report was submitted by a large group of Chilean scientists to Chile's Ministry of Science & Technology at COP25. Prof. Alex Godoy of WtERT-Chile headed the section “Wastes [...]

"A call for Papers in Special Issue of Applied Sciences, titled "Advances in Industrial Waste Reduction" by Prof. Psomopoulos of WtERT-Greece". Dear Colleagues, I would like to draw your attention to Special Issue "Advances in Industrial Waste Reduction" to be published in the open-access journal MDPI Applied Sciences IF 2.217, see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Industrial_Waste_Reduction. As you have published many interesting papers related to this topic, we sincerely invite you to make a contribution to [...]

WTE for Montreal: Montreal Gazette: Waste-to-Energy Can Help with Waste Crisis In an opinion piece for the Montreal Gazette, one of the largest papers in Montreal by circulation, the paper argues that municipalities should consider waste-to-energy as a more efficient method of dealing with waste. With increasing consumption and the straining of recycling systems, waste-to-energy is capable of dealing with new materials. The article comes as a result of Montreal [...]

Sept. 13. 2019: Australian Trade Association Calls for Waste-to-Energy The Australian Industrial Ecology Network (AIEN) is urging state governments and other stakeholders to advance WTE facilities to further develop a circular economy. In a recent report, the association argues that WTE permitting should be streamlined and unified to create a consistent policy framework. WTE is seen as a key driver of maximizing products’ value. Australian governments and stakeholders should [...]

Waste-to-Energy with CCS is a Path to Carbon-Negative Power A new report from the Global CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) Institute describes WTE’s role in relation to climate change and the benefits of CCS. With continued population growth, waste use, and energy demand, WTE with CCS could be a solution to multiple challenges. The report highlights examples in the Netherlands, Norway, and Japan as models. Please click on the [...]

SUEZ company of France has been awarded a 109 million euro contract for the Ouarville, France WTE plant (126,000 tons/year). The project includes a ten-hectare greenhouse that will utilize the CO2 generated by the WTE plant. Also, the WTE ash will be used in road construction. Please click on the link to this study.

Prof. Themelis responds to a reporter's question on the contribution of the Sierra Club to landfilling in the U.S: Sierra Club supports many worthwhile causes but, regrettably, for nearly thirty years they have opposed consistently waste-to-energy power plants that use as fuel municipal solid wastes and generate electricity and heat. As a result of Sierra's "environmental" efforts, the U.S. landfills 90% of its post-recycling wastes. In contrast to the [...]

Question by Prof. Themelis regarding U.S. National Academies Study: "Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century: Addressing Grand Challenges". Dear National Academies, I received a complimentary copy of the above study by the NA. It is a well written and illustrated report by a committee comprised  of well known environmental faculty like Profs. Domenico Grasso of Michigan and Julie Zimmerman of Yale. Because of my research, I was particularly interested in the [...]

Covanta Energy Announces Concession Agreement to Build New WTE Facility in Zhao County, China Covanta signed a concession agreement with Zhao County, China, for the construction and operation of a new WTE facility for the county and nearby jurisdictions about 200 miles south of Beijing. Covanta will partner with a local organization on the project. The plant signals Covanta’s return to China. The concession agreement guarantees waste supply for [...]

Zero land-filling in San Francisco, to be done with mirrors According to the recent news report "San Francsico sends 467,000 tons of MSW to landfills, of 900.000 tons generated (about 1 ton/capita). Therefore, SF landfills 52% of its MSW (plus residues from recycling and composting of the other 48%). Mayor Breed, that's a long way from "zero landfilling". The only way for California to stop being the nation's largest [...]

Here is an interesting video by Proteus (UK) of citizens' reaction, before and after a WTE plant was built in their community. Please click below for the video.

Visiting report of Sims Recycling facility (MRF) in NYC. Please click on the photo below to preview the visiting report. Visiting report of Covanta Essex WTE. Please click on the photo below to preview the visiting report. If you have any question, please contact with Viviana Avalos, email: [email protected] .

Demetra Tsiamis, of WtERT speaks to Bloomberg TicToc on waste, sustainability and waste-to-energy. Please click on this link for details. If you have any further questions or inquiries, please contact her at: [email protected]

Recent University of California at Los Angeles study as to how WTE can be major source of WTE in the U.S. According to a new study published in Nature Energy from UCLA, the United States could produce enough energy by harnessing waste to power the states of Oregon and Washington, while reducing carbon. The study encompassed 15 energy conversion technologies and 29 waste types. In [...]

Dr. A.C. (Thanos) Bourtsalas, head of WtERT at Columbia University was appointed as Lecturer int the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering of Columbia. In addition to his Industrial Ecology and Solid Waste Management and WTE courses, Prof. Bourtsalas will be overseeing the M.S. program in Earth Resources Engineering. Congratulations!  Prof. Bourtsalas!

SWANA Records 30 Solid Waste Worker Fatalities So Far in 2019 The Solid Waste Association of North America, reported 31 fatalities in waste management last year, of which seven were at landfills and the rest during collection at transfer stations and MRFs . There were no fatalities at any of the U.S. WTE power plants. Link to webpage: https://waste-management-world.com/a/swana-records-30-solid-waste-worker-fatalities-so-far-in

Sharing News from Professor Themelis Dear friends, have a look at very informative video by Florida TV on one of the largest and newest WTE power plants at Palm Beach Florida.  https://www.wptv.com/news/region-c-palm-beach-county/west-palm-beach/renewable-energy-letting-nothing-go-to-waste -I also refer you to the latest news of our WtERT-Germany partner https://www.wtert.net/Latest_News.html -Here is a link to a new volume edited by me and Dr. Bourtsalas, titled Materials and Energy Recovery from Urban [...]

News for GWC management team Dear members of the GWC international team: a) Congratulations to Prof. Marco Castaldi (WtERT-US) on two very informative videos produced by his Earth Engineering Center at City College of New York that you may want to link to from your web pages: EEC|CCNY featured on CUNY TV's "Study with the Best" ccnyeec.org/eecccny-featured-on-cuny-tvs-study-with-the-best/ and https://www.facebook.com/WTERTGlobal/videos/1571317336225386/ b) Prof. Maria Loizidou of the National [...]

Sustainable investment in waste management (from EU) Have a look at the attached letter with which GWC agrees wholeheartedly. For several years, I have been telling EU colleagues that they should do everything in their power, so the word "Incineration" is not used by EU, EC etc. broadly to include waste to energy (WTE) plants . There are million of tons of wastes "incinerated" intentionally in [...]

Waste-to-Energy and Renewable Electricity Pyrolysis is suitable for high calorific value wastes, such as non-recycled plastics (35 MJ/kg). It will not be viable for urban wastes <12 MJ/kg) and certainly not for wastewater biosolids (<5 MJ/kg). You cannot make a silken purse from a sow's ear. Researchers argue pyrolysis for wastewater biosolids not as sustainable as advertised (On WasteDive) In 2008, WtERT at Columbia University was [...]

New York Times Front Page about WTE The front page of New York Times, dated March 27, 2019, carries a photograph of Copenhagen "ski slope WTE" with a story how Copenhagen has cut down its carbon emissions. Link to the story is here - https://www.nytimes.com/…/cl…/copenhagen-climate-change.html

The first WTE in Australia going up at Kwinana (Perth) At the invitation of visionary Rob Moltoni of Moltoni Energy, Prof. Themelis spent a good part of April 2010 on a series of lectures in Perth (and Kwinana!) on the potential benefits of WTE for Australia. The gestation period was nearly eight years but hopefully the second WTE may not take as long. Link to first [...]

WTE Options of Waste Management A very good and factual comparison of various "WTE Options of Waste Management" (combustion, anaerobic digestion, landfill gas) has been published by the German organization GIZ who has extensive presence and experience in the developing world. Read Full Article

European Commission's "Circular Economy Action plan" Prof Themelis, of Columbia University has a commeny about the European Commission's "Circular Economy Action plan": On waste management, there is not one word about energy recovery by combustion of post-recycling wastes? By now, according to Eurostat data, 28% of EU MSW is used as fuel in waste-to-energy (WTE) plants (450+ of them in EU). http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6203_en.htm [...]

Comment of Prof. Themelis on the broad use of the word "Incineration" and "Incinerators" In many parts of the world landfills are set on fire to create landfill space. Even in the U.S., each year there are about three thousand unintended landfill fires (see Dwyer and Themelis, Dioxins study on Google). These events can be called "incineration" but do not apply to the modern waste to [...]

First Waste to Energy in UAE Prof. Nickolas Themelis response to Waste Dive editorial: I am surprised that Waste Dive, who attended the 2018 WtERT meeting at City College of New York, last October,  seems to endorse the misinformation published by "Rina Li" last December in Waste Dive. As is the usual case, Li does not mention LANDFILLING, not even once, and compares energy recovery from [...]

Burning issue: Are waste-to-energy plants a good idea? | Environment | The Guardian To the Editor, Guardian: Re the Australia-related article "Are waste to energy (WTE) plants a good idea?",  twenty years of in-depth studies at Columbia University have shown that...not only it is a good idea but it is the only practical idea for avoiding wasting land, metal, and energy resources, by landfilling post-recycling urban wastes. [...]

New book by World Bank from EEC alumna New book by World Bank on What A Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050 is co-authored by EEC alumna Perinaz Bhada and includes section about WTE for Tajikistan from thesis of EEC alumna Shahnoza Boboeva.

UNECE Committee for the development of PPP Guidelines Dr. Bourtsalas was appointed as an expert at the UNECE committee for the development of PPP Guidelines on WTE applications at the 'One Belt, One Road' regions. The committee consists, among others, of financial- ADB, IFC and  legislative insteuments- UN, Chinese government. The final report will be presented in May 2020.

Landfills In Puerto Rico And The Virgin Islands Are Already An Environmental Mess. Hurricanes Just Made These Failing Piles Of Garbage Worse.

The 50-megawatt (MW) Reppie Waste to Energy facility, which Ethiopia claims to be the first of its kind in Africa, will be commissioned in December. This plant is reported to cost $118.5 million and will process 350,000 metric tons/year (about $340.ton of annual capacity).

The Group’s remarkable sustainable development performance over the past year, has resulted in it been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index for the second consecutive year.

China Everbright International has won the bid for Shenyang Daxin waste to energy Project in Liaoning Province and signed a Public-Private Partnership agreement with Liaoning Shenyang City Construction Administration Bureau.

China Everbright International Limited announced that the Group's Weifang Waste-to-energy Project Phase II in Shandong Province, Suining Waste-to-energy in Sichuan Province, and Gaochun Waste-to-energy Project in Jiangsu Province have recently completed construction and commenced operation in succession.

First WTE plant under construction in Vietnam, is invested in, built and operated by China Everbright International. It has a designed daily MSW capacity of 400 tonnes (7.5 MW electricity). The total investment of approximately US$47 million (about $360/annual tonne of capacity).

Cross-Asia meeting co-organized and chaired by Prof. Nickolas Themelis, Director of of Earth Engineering Center in Nanjing, China on April 25-28. 2017.

In this lecture, Dr. Athanasios Bourtsalas, Adjunct Professor at the Earth and Environmental Engineering Department, Columbia University and and Manager of the Earth Engineering Centre-Columbia (WTERT-US), presents research findings on the level of municipal solid waste management achieved by different countries.

The harm resulting from Trump’s environmental deregulation spree will do business more harm than good; leaders need to show Trump that they do not support this, says Business and Sustainable Development Commission chair Mark Malloch Brown.

Salman Zafar, CEO of BioEnergy Consult, talks to Power Today magazine on India’s tryst with waste-to-energy and highlights major challenges and obstacles in making waste-to-energy a success story in India.

Madhya Pradesh's first biomethanation plant that can generate biogas to power street lights or for other similar use, was inaugurated by mayor Alok Sharma at Bittan Market in the state capital.

In the past two weeks there’s been a significant spurt in the waste-to-energy (WtE) industry across the developing world. South Africa opened its first (and also the continent’s) WtE conversion plant in Cape Town last week. Sharjah in UAE just announced plans for two such facilities including one that will process e-waste. Indonesia said it was teaming up with Japan to turn waste into renewable energy. India is currently unravelling bureaucratic and legal hurdles to get a number of waste-to-energy facilities operational to cater to its capital and satellite areas. And in the Philippines the debate over WtE management technologies, currently banned in the country, is beginning to heat up.

Current and former neighbors near landfill owned by the town of Wheatfield, New York, are threatening to sue the town for a total of almost $1 billion, accusing the town of failing to clean up a toxic landfill, according to a report in the Buffalo News.

Short documentary produced for science program "TM Wissen" for the Austrian channel ServusTV/Red Bull TV.

Profs. Themelis and Bourtsalas of Columbia University contributed to the 2016 Thermal Spray Roadmap, published in the 2016 December issue of Journal of Thermal Spray Technology edited by Prof. Armelle Vardelle, a Research Associate of EEC-Columbia (Volume 25, Issue 8, pp 1376–1440).

A total of 32 students, accompanied by Professor Thanos Bourtsalas, visited a Waste to Energy Plant located on the banks of the Rahway River in New Jersey. The plant is owned by the Union County Utilities Authority and operated by Covanta Energy under a 25-year lease negotiated in 1998.

An interview with Prof. Themelis and Dr. Thanos for State of the Planet in Columbia University's Earth Institute

WTERT members worldwide:
This is to remind you that the Global WTERT Council (GWC) is participating in the world Atlas of all known waste management facilities www.atlas.d-waste.com/

Here is something for those who continue to deny global warming: The highest worldwide temperatures recorded in January-August 2016. See the GISS (Earth Institute, Columbia University) graph here.

The collection of the "commercial" stream of MSW in NYC, over three million tons annually, has been a big environmental problem. Finally, a glimmer of light has appeared at the end of the tunnel.

By Ben Messenger

The gulf region produces around 150 million tonnes of waste annually, with only 5% of it being recycled and vast quantities going to municipal dumps and landfill or, worse, being illegally dumped at unauthorised sites. This is a growing problem too, since the rapid urban expansion of ME countries means that their annual waste production rates are also on the rise.

Dr. Eftsratios (Stratos) Kalogirou represented the Global WTERT Council at the IRRC in Vienna, Sept. 5-6, 2016.

Dr. A.C. (Thanos) Bourtsalas, Adjunct Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering represented Columbia University at the 2016 Gordon Conference on Industrial Ecology, held in Stowe, Vermont. (June 19-24)

The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) 2016 Excellence Gold Award was won by the Covanta Honolulu WTE plant. The SWAN 2016 Excellence Silver Award went to the SEMASS WTE plant of Covanta, at Rochester, Mass.

Report by Ms. Yenaxika Bolate (EEE graduate) on the May 2016 visit to the West Palm Beach, FL facility.

Tim Sharobem, PhD Thesis, Mitigation of High Temperature Corrosion in Waste-to-Energy Power Plants, EAEE Columbia University (2016) Now Available.

At the 2016 Congress of the Confederation of European WTE plants (CEWEP; Rotterdam, June 16), Prof. Nickolas Themelis of Columbia University and President of the Global WTERT Council received the CEWEP Phoenix Award.

On April 25-26, 2016 the Earth Engineering Center of City College of New York (EEC-CCNY) and the Institute for Sustainability of AIChE organized a very successful two-day workshop in Manhattan on the subject “Megacity Waste Management Dialogue: The NYC Roadmap for waste as a Resource”. The Workshop was co-chaired by Prof., Marco J. Castaldi, and Demetra Tsiamis of RRC-CCNY and was attended by experts from academia, industry, and government. The meeting’s focus was on the present challenges for promoting sustainable waste management in populous cities like New York. One of the presentations was by NYC Commissioner of Sanitation, Ms. Kathryn Garcia.

Article by Matt Clay on 6th WTE plant to be built in Singapore, to generate 800kWh per ton of MSW. Article also discusses growth of WTE in China.