IntroductionAll around the world, energy and raw materials are in ever shorter supply, whilst their consumption is on the increase – and greenhouse gases are speeding up climate change. And so we need to take a quantum leap in terms of efficiently using resources and energy.
The waste industry in Germany plays a key role here. Since the first law on waste management came into force in Germany in 1972, waste policy has achieved a great deal: Whilst in the past, waste was simply dumped in landfills, we today have very high-tech and specialised closed cycle management. Innovative processes and technologies allow us to fully and efficiently recycle our waste, turning today’s trash into tomorrow’s treasure-trove. (Sigmar Gabriel, Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety)
Over 250,000 people are employed in the waste industry in Germany. The sector has a turnover of around 50 billion euros, and the total waste produced amounts to 330 million tons, 46.5 million of which is municipal waste. The specific volume of municipal waste amounts to 560 kg per capita per annum.
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Front page photo/BMU broschure Waste Management in Germany, (Download: see Links), ©BMU
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The waste industry's contribution to sustainable development in Germany can be seen in the country's recycling quota, which is the highest in the world, and which saves on both resources and primary energy. Almost 62% of municipal waste and 64% of industrial waste is recycled. The recycling quota is even higher for construction waste (86%), packaging (84%), batteries (82%) and graphical paper (80%).
The contribution of modern waste management to climate protection is remarkable: over the last 15 years the emission of greenhouse gas pollutants from waste management was reduced by 30 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents per year. |
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BMU waste separation game for kids,
©BMU
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BMU Waste Separation Game for Kids
Children, and indeed anyone who likes games, can play the Waste Separation Game to see whether they’ve learned the lessons taught by DSD and are separating waste properly in their own homes.
The aim of the game is to throw the waste dropping out of the refuse chute into the right dustbin!
(Flash 5 Player or higher must be installed on your computer)
To play the game (instructions are in German), just click on the link above.
Have fun!
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RDF production with Stabilat: The Herhof Stabilat process uses mechanical biological stabilisation (MBS) to produce high-quality refuse-derived fuel. MBS differs from conventional MBT in that thanks to the biological stabilisation (biodrying) of all waste, no waste goes to make compost. Together with the remaining combustible waste fraction it is also used as an energy carrier in the Stabilat process. This video explains the process. |
Practical Examples: Waste Separation using Near Infrared Spectography (NIR) and X-Ray Detectors
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Waste sorting and treatment, Cröbern landfill site, ©BMU
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Introduction
In Germany, glass, paper, old clothes, compost and biowaste, packaging, bulky waste and specialist waste are collected separately by private households before they are recycled by public-sector or private-sector waste management agencies. Because of the high standards imposed on these recovery processes, even retail packaging, for example, that has been separately collected still needs to be further sorted. Originally, this sorting was done manually and with the aid of magnetic separators, air classifiers and vortex separators (see German-language Guide to Waste Sorting). Since 1997, however, more and more automatic sorting systems have been introduced. It is now possible to separate different types of plastic using a refined detector system based on near infrared spectrography (NIR), which is capable of identifying the type, size, shape and colour of materials. The system is linked to a computer with such a high processor speed that separation of the individual pieces via precise compressed air jets occurs in real time. As a result, different types of plastic are separated with a high degree of accuracy. |
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Dustbin lorry with detectors, ©Stadt Euskirchen
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The town of Euskirchen installs detectors on its dustbin lorries (Maier & Fabris GmbH)
Foreign materials must be removed from organic waste before composting if recycling is to be carried out properly and the quality of the resulting compost to be maintained. Sorting is a critical subject where safety at work is concerned. It also entails considerable personnel and waste disposal costs.
Solution: The town of Euskirchen is installing Maier & Fabris detectors on its lifting mechanism so that the compost bins can be examined for harmful substances and foreign materials before being emptied. This is an automatic process which does not slow the collection round.
Consequence: A reduction in the proportion of sorting errors in the disposal of organic waste! |
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RDF reference plant, Neuss, ©TiTech systems
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First RDF reference plant in Neuss (TiTech systems)
The plant in Neuss is the first of its type in Germany to sort refuse-derived fuel (RDF) with a constant chlorine content of less than 0.5% from household waste. |
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High-speed sorting, ©Commodas GmbH
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Applications for X-ray detectors (Mogensen GmbH & Co. KG, Commodas GmbH)
The NIR technology recognises light plastics, raw wood and various textiles from a grain size of 50mm. The residue left generally comes from the untreated fractions lying between 0 and 50mm and the heavy sediments with lots of dark plastic parts, laminated and treated wood and mixed materials. It is impossible to separate this mix of materials using colour definition, i.e. with the help of visible light, or using wind to separate out organic and inorganic matter. Mogensen and CommoDaS have therefore developed a sorting machine which separates out a wide range of materials using x-ray sensors to aid separation into inert fractions suitable for landfilling and into a high calorific value waste stream and to aid the production of usable building rubble. New possibilities of sorting household and industrial waste automatically are now being identified, as this method is very cost-effective. |
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Manual vehicle recycling ©H.-G. Oed
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Processing of complex subassemblies from scrapped vehicles by the application of identification processes
Given the continuing increase in the number of motor vehicles in Germany, and the associated increase in the proportion of plastics used in vehicle production, new technologies will be required if the re-use of recyclable plastics and components from scrapped vehicles is to be achieved. To date, the strict separation of plastics from metal components has only been possible by the highly uneconomical method of manual dismantling.
Under the terms of an overall project, it was intended to investigate an alternative process for the automatic sorting of plastics from vehicle waste. |
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Installation based on the MikroSort process ©DBU
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Intelligent processes for sorting raw materials (DBU)
It is impossible to re-use a wide range of materials in an environmentally friendly fashion due to the lack of purity after sorting. CommoDaS GmbH and Mogensen GmbH & Co. KG (both located in Wedel) have therefore developed MikroSort, a system which is capable of separating a wide range of materials with a grain size of 2-8mm (fine machine), 8-30mm (normal machine), 30-80mm (medium-sized machine) and 80-250mm (heavy-duty machine) from one another. |
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Mixture of metals - material for the Metal X sorting technology, ©DBU
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Metal X sorting technology: the fast and reliable sorting of metals (DBU)
Research throughout Europe has shown that up to 15% metal is still contained in landfilled waste streams. Both resource management and re-usability make it desirable and expedient to sort these residue metals out of the waste stream for recycling. To this end, Separation Systems Engineering GmbH (SSE), a subsidiary of the CommoDaS Group (Wedel), has developed the novel Metal “X” product family, which uses electromagnetic processes (metal sensors) to achieve 99-percent recovery. |
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Materials-specific treatment of brick chippings and sanitary ceramics, ©DBU
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Materials-specific recycling of building waste (DBU)
Most mineral building waste is composed of cement waste from road construction, civil engineering and building projects, or of masonry rubble, which is usually brick. While suitable ways of recycling old cement have already been established, there is still a long way to go where the recycling of masonry rubble is concerned. If the valuable characteristics of the various components in building rubble are to be used effectively, materials-specific recycling must be improved in the construction industry. The project initiated by the Chair of the Preparation of Building Materials and Recycling at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar aims to design materials cycles using brick chippings and sanitary ceramics as an example. |
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