Garbage Incineration Great Leap Forward

Since 2008, the controversial waste incineration in China has evolved into an investment feast.

The last three years of the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” plus the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” for a total of eight years is the golden age of China’s waste incineration industry—Zhang Yi, President of Shanghai Environmental Hygiene Engineering Design Institute, recently launched the China’s waste-to-energy power generation project in Shanghai. It is such a prediction on the Outlook Forum.

Caixin “New Century” learned from the conference that there are currently more than 160 waste incineration plants built and under construction in China; and there are more than 200 waste incineration plants planned during the “12th Five Year Plan” period. In other words, the number of waste incineration power plants may increase two to three times over the next four years.

How to deal with the increasingly fierce garbage of the 100 billion yuan cake is a difficult problem for local governments at all levels in China.

At present, China produces more than 360 million tons of domestic waste per year, including 150 million to 160 million tons of urban living garbage, accounting for about one-third of the world's total, and growing at an average annual rate of 8%.

In terms of waste disposal methods, China mainly focuses on landfill, incineration and composting. Landfill is currently the main method, accounting for nearly half; burning accounted for about 12%; composting less than 10%; still 30% of domestic garbage can not be processed.

Zhang Yi said that although landfilling is the main method, the treatment is relatively elementary, and there are also problems such as high land occupation, difficulty in controlling odor, long stability period, and risk of pollution. In contrast, the burning method occupies a small area, the stabilization speed is fast, the reduction effect is good, and the odor is easy to control. It is a rational choice for large cities with dense population and land shortage.

Shi Yang, chief engineer of the Technical Consultation Center of the China Urban Environmental Health Association, told Caixin’s “New Century” reporter that at present, the main problem of China’s garbage disposal is still the lack of innocent treatment capacity. During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the construction of waste treatment facilities is still the top priority.

Shi Yang revealed that during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, the country will increase processing capacity by about 400,000 tons/day, and increase investment by about 140 billion yuan. In addition, there are still some additional projects that require additional investment. The continued investment in construction is about 30 billion yuan. The operation and transportation will cost approximately 36 billion yuan, the inventory will be about 20 billion yuan, the kitchen waste will be about 9 billion yuan, the garbage will be classified as about 20 billion yuan, and the supervision capacity will be about 5 billion yuan. During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, China's investment in waste disposal amounted to 260 billion yuan.

According to industry sources, among the 260 billion yuan in cakes, over 100 billion yuan will be cut to waste to generate electricity.

According to reports, the national environmental protection department has always had two opinions on the direction of waste disposal. One is the main burning group and the other is the anti-burning faction. Both sides have been deadlocked.

This situation changed in April 2011. The State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Work," clearly stating that cities with scarce land resources and high population density should give priority to the use of incineration technology.

Since then, various waste incineration projects have been launched in succession, but all have been promoted in a low-key manner. There are 20 cities in Shandong Province and Zhejiang Province respectively, 17 in Fujian Province, and 14 in Jiangsu Province and 13 in Guangdong Province.

Zhang Yi revealed that in the future, Shanghai will construct 11 waste incineration plants with a daily capacity of 800 tons and a maximum of 3,000 tons, adding up to 16,000 tons. The Yuqiao Waste Incineration Plant, which has caused widespread controversy in Shanghai, has a daily processing capacity of 1,000 tons. This means that Shanghai will also add 16 Yuqiao incinerators.

According to relevant plans, by the end of the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”, the total number of waste incineration plants in China will exceed 300, and the daily processing capacity will reach 300,000 tons, accounting for 30% of the total waste disposal.

Obviously, during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, China will usher in the "Great Leap Forward" of waste incineration projects.

Leaving aside the dilemma China has chosen this road and is destined not to be even. At present, governments at all levels are facing two attacks: one side is the mountainous rubbish around the city, and the other side is the residents' opposition to waste incineration.

According to Zhang Yi’s statistics, from June 2007, Beijing halted the construction of the Liulitun Waste Incineration Plant due to residents' opposition. By January 2011, at least ten mass incidents occurred due to waste incineration sites in Beijing, including Beijing. Three times, Jiangsu Province three times, Guangdong Province three times, and Shanghai once.

“The regions with the most developed economy and the strongest environmental awareness among residents are also the regions with the highest increase in real estate,” said Zhang Yi.

Talking about the status of waste incineration pollution in China, Wang Qi, director of the Solid Waste Pollution Control Technology Research Institute of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, believes that the development of waste incineration in China is very fast, but the starting point is low. Since the materials for waste incineration are very different, it is almost difficult to control pollution.

The occurrence of mass incidents during the construction of waste incineration plants is not a special case of China. Developed countries and regions refer to this type of phenomenon as "neighboring movements" (see our 2011 issue No. 45 "'Adjacency Campaign' in China").

The "neighborhood movement" first appeared in European and American countries in the process of urbanization. The cause is that waste treatment plants, substations, nuclear power stations, mental hospitals, prisons, funeral parlours and other facilities are often subjected to strong resistance from nearby residents. Residents' demands are usually "Not in my back yard". Residents want to protect their own areas of life from public or industrial facilities that have negative effects. Chinese generally translates this as "neighborhood" or "neighborhood".

The United States, Japan, a number of EU countries, and the Taiwan region of China eventually passed strict environmental discharge standards, a transparent public participation system, and municipal subsidies for residents around the facility (such as building green spaces, libraries, and employment incentives). To a certain extent, this problem has been alleviated. In China, none of these three aspects has become a system, and conflicts have continued.

Zhang Yi believes that the fundamental reason for China's mass incidents caused by waste incineration projects is that the original waste incineration plant standard is too low, and management is not enough, resulting in excessive smoke and odor nuisance.

The other two important reasons are that land prices and real estate prices continue to push up, adding to the residents' demands for environmental quality; second, the pollution caused by residents has caused panic among residents. He believes that *** pollution may now be artificially magnified.

Zhang Yi also talked about the fourth reason that can not be ignored - the local government in the past was improperly positioned, the tendering process is not standardized, making the waste incineration company's operation and management is not standardized. He said that for newly built and built waste incinerators, it should strictly monitor and strictly control pollution.

Unprepared Standards Although waste incineration projects around the country are fast moving forward, there is no clear standard for how waste incineration projects are managed and how to avoid all kinds of pollution. The “Control Standard for Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Pollution”, which was led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and was revised and originally scheduled for release in 2011, has already expired.

"It should have been promulgated in 2011, but there have been new changes," Wang Qi said. The formulation of this standard is very difficult. It is necessary to consider environmental impacts, but also to consider technical limitations. We must also consider public influence and social stability. "Pressure can be imagined."

The current standards in China were formulated in the late 1990s and implemented in 2002. Wang Qi pointed out that at the time, this standard did not have a proper reference in China. Even if standards are set, such as ***'s emission standards, it cannot be controlled.

Wang Qi believes that, now, the original part of the standard irrational restrictions, unclear scope of use, and over-emphasis on the end of the control, that is, the control of emissions, does not meet the waste incineration process characteristics and pollution characteristics.

Regarding the above, Wang Qi’s research team has submitted revised proposals, in which the limits for flue gas, nitrogen oxides, dioxide*, hydrogen chloride, and heavy metals have all been significantly reduced, especially for the public’s concern. The limits were also reduced from 1 ng-TEQ/m3 to 0.1 ng-TEQ/m3 (ng-TEQ, equivalent to ng equivalent).

"But these limits are still for tail control." Wang Qi said. Since the waste incinerators are the most polluting when they are turned on and off, they recommend that they start charging after the start of the furnace after the temperature is raised to the specified temperature; however, after the shutdown, it is still necessary to continue the blasting. Hours, maintain the temperature in the furnace.

The new standard (draft for solicitation) has not changed much for the site selection that has caused widespread controversy. According to previous standards, the location of domestic waste incineration plants must meet the local urban and rural construction master plan and environmental protection plan, and comply with local requirements for air pollution prevention, water resources protection, and natural protection. Based on this new standard, a new requirement has been added: In the site selection, at least three candidate sites are to be selected and determined through legal and scientific procedures after they have undergone an environmental impact assessment.

Prof. Zhao Youcai of the National Laboratory for Pollution Control and Resource Reuse of Tongji University told Caixin’s “New Century” reporter that the new standard is still 300 meters for the garbage incineration project and the minimum boundary of the residential area.

The standard of 300 meters is determined with reference to the “Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Environmental Impact Assessment of Biomass Power Generation Projects” jointly issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the National Energy Administration in September 2008. Zhao Youcai believes that this distance should be 3 kilometers. He said that in fact, the pollution within a range of 300 meters is not large, but the pollution is more than one kilometer away, and the decay is faster after more than one kilometer.

Scholars generally believe that the great flaw in the draft of the new standard is that public participation and recognition has not yet been used as a prerequisite for the landfilling of waste incineration projects. Regardless of whether the main burn or the anti-burning group thinks that the garbage incineration project is in harmony with the surrounding residents, it is a problem that has no solution in China.

China's main scullery has used data from Europe and the United States to explain the low level of emissions from waste incinerators.

According to statistics, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average annual emission equivalent of US domestic waste incineration power plants decreased from 1,000 grams in 1987 to 12 grams in 2002. In 1990, the annual emissions of domestic garbage in Germany accounted for nearly one-third of all emissions, and by 2000, this proportion had fallen to less than one percent.

However, this can only explain the achievements of the United States and Germany in the management of waste incineration pollution. It is impossible to say whether China is now in the United States in 1987 or in 2002. Moreover, the Chinese environmental protection department has not been able to provide any data on the emissions of waste from waste incineration plants.

Several researchers have pointed out that China's current waste incineration estimate will generate more than one million tons of incinerated fly ash each year. However, in addition to a few cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, most of the waste incineration fly ash has not been disposed of safely. Even when the incineration plant was designed, fly ash processing requirements were put forward. However, in actual operation, due to the large amount of incineration fly ash generated, high processing costs, or lack of disposal facilities, most of the fly ash could not be processed as required. The environment has caused great harm.

Controversy sneak Although there are two main voices, the main burning and anti-burning, the pollution problems of the established projects are beginning to appear, and the group incidents arising from the site selection have been repeatedly performed, but three years after the “Eleventh Five-year Plan” (2008 to 2010). Since then, China's waste incineration plants have begun to work fast.

Experts believe that one of the reasons for this situation is the decentralization of the approval authority.

The approval of waste incineration projects in China has undergone a process from receipt. In June 2006, the old No. 82 article ("Circular on Strengthening the Management of Environmental Impact Assessment of Biomass Power Generation Projects") received the environmental assessment of the waste incineration power generation project and received approval from the State Environmental Protection Administration; and the new one in September 2008 Circular No. 82 ("Circular on Further Strengthening the Management of Environmental Impact Assessment for Biomass Power Generation Projects"), also decentralized the environmental evaluation of waste incineration power generation projects to the local level.

Zhang Yi, dean of the Shanghai Environmental Hygiene Engineering Design Institute, said that the background for the first document issued in June 2006 was that the localities' grasp of the incineration environmental assessment was uneven, and the State Environmental Protection Administration believed that it needed centralized control. Within two years of receiving the rights, the approval of the national environmental protection department project was very slow, and local opinions were very big. Therefore, the approval authority was decentralized again in September 2008.

Since then, waste incineration projects across China have entered their "golden age." The fact is that more than 100 existing and in-construction waste incineration plants have been built mainly in the nearly four years since 2008. In April 2011, the State Council issued the “Opinions on Further Strengthening the Treatment of Municipal Solid Waste” mentioned above, basically recognizing that incineration has become one of the main directions for waste disposal in China in the future.

The Great Leap Forward for waste incineration is being staged in China. In fact, there are also reasons for economic benefits, that is, it is tied with the benefits of power generation. The vast majority of waste incineration projects in China are waste incineration power generation projects, which are characterized by large initial investment, low operating costs, and stable and profitable returns. Its source of income includes not only waste disposal subsidies and electricity sales revenue, but also tax incentives, heating revenue, and sales of slag.

According to industry estimates, the payback period for waste incineration plant projects is 8 to 12 years. At present, China's waste incineration projects mainly use BOT (build-operate-transfer) and BOO (build-own-operate). The two-mode franchise period for investors is generally 25 to 30 years. This is equivalent to the investor making a net profit of up to 22 years.

Taking the Gaoantun Garbage Incineration Plant in Chaoyang District of Beijing as an example, the waste disposal capacity is 1600 tons/day, 530,000 tons for the whole year, 200 million kWh of annual power generation, 160 million kWh of on-grid electricity, and 104 million yuan of electricity sales revenue. The revenue per ton of waste generated is 195 yuan. Economic benefits are not only higher than sanitary landfills and compost, but also very profitable compared to many other industries.

Informed sources revealed that in the past, some waste incineration plants deliberately mixed coal with waste in order to increase the amount of electricity generated in order to earn high price subsidies.

The latest news from Caixin’s “New Century” reporter is that in recent years, many waste incineration power generation projects have changed the project to “a certain XX biomass power generation project” in order to avoid the public’s sensitivity to waste incineration. In this regard, relevant experts pointed out that China's waste incineration outlets should be strict standards and transparent management, as well as appropriate compensation, in order to allow nearby residents to live in harmony with these facilities.