In December 2010 the European Commission issued a new guideline which no longer sees waste as an unnecessary burden but rather as a valuable resource. The waste hierarchy distinguishes five stages: waste prevention, reuse, recycling, other types of recovery such as energy production and finally landfill.

The international VDI conference "Energy and Materials from Waste" to be held in Frankfurt, Germany, on 14 and 15 May 2013 will tackle this subject and discuss the recovery of materials and energy from waste.

The conference's technical directors are Jan Manders, deputy president of the Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants (CEWEP) and Dr.-Ing. Ragnar Warnecke, Managing Director of Gemeinschaftskraftwerk Schweinfurt. The event is organized by the VDI Wissensforum with the support of its European partners CEWEP, ESWET (the European Suppliers of Waste to Energy Technology), Prewin (the Performance, Reliability and Emissions Reduction in Waste Incinerators Network) and also ISWA (the International Solid Waste Association) and Gemeinschaftskraftwerk Schweinfurt.

Since the introduction of the guideline, European plant operators have been faced with new challenges and issues. At this two-day conference, experts from the industry will give an overview of European waste management, recycling, market developments and resource efficiency in European countries and also the recovery of minerals, metals and energy in waste-to-energy plants. Speakers will present best-practice examples covering three of the largest European WtE-plants: Manchester, Amsterdam and Malmö.

The European waste markets are assessed by speakers from MVV Umwelt, E.on Energy and Martin für Umwelt- und Energietechnik with regard to their growth potential, entry opportunities and technical aspects. The focus here will be on existing markets in western and northern Europe and on growing markets in the United Kingdom, southern and eastern Europe as well as China. The subject of recycling metals after incineration will be covered by, among others, experts from Inashco Technology.

Various technologies will be presented and methods of recovering materials will be discussed. Experts from SITA Northern Waste Services and leading researchers will compare recycling and energy production, giving case examples. Further interesting papers are contributed by CNIM, Sysav AB, Statkraft Vame AS, Keppel Seghers, Babcock & Wilcoy Vøl A/S and LAB amongst others.

Source: VDI Wissensforum GmbH