By Joseph Doherty, Managing Director of Re-Gen Waste

Recycling is the future.

Recovering as much as we possibly can from our waste by recycling makes sense from both a financial and environmental point of view.

That is certainly the mantra which we at Re-Gen Waste live by, constantly improving the amount we recycle by using the latest technology.

At present, there remains a small proportion of waste which isn’t recycled as it isn’t economically viable to do so. Over time, as a wave of government legislation and funding emerges, this will change and it will soon become possible to take advantage of some of the latest sorting techniques to increase the percentage of waste recycled.

While these new technologies are being developed, the materials currently not recycled are manufactured into waste derived fuels, preventing it being sent to landfill.

Currently, we export it to Sweden and Norway where it is turned into both electricity and heat in heat and power plants. The environmental value in this is something which is unique to those regions. Their towns and cities have underground district heating systems, large pipe networks which take hot water from the central heat source and deliver to homes and businesses. UK and Ireland based plants can make electricity from the waste fuels but without a district heating system in place, the heat  is lost to the atmosphere. Such plants are neither energy efficient nor environmentally friendly use of the Waste derived fuels.

Most of the fuels are exported by sea freight as ‘backloads’ on ships relocating back to the Baltic to load further cargoes of timber. A recent document from the RDF Industry group found that shipping RDF to Sweden accounts for only 4% of total CO2 emissions from the waste treatment process per tonne of waste. Once the backloading is factored in, that figure falls to just 1% of the total CO2 emitted from each tonne of waste treated.

It must be said that exporting is merely the interim solution which will only be necessary as industry hones the techniques to maximise recycling from our waste to create a true circular economy.

The alternative, a £240 million incinerator proposed by arc21 for Mallusk, would see all Northern Ireland’s waste burned using inefficient, dated technology. Little wonder that MPs in England are calling for a moratorium on the development of new waste incineration plants following the release of an all-party parliamentary group report.

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland has yet to decide on whether or not to give planning permission for the Mallusk incinerator, one which would have such a large capacity that the province would have to become an importer of waste just to keep it fed over its 25-year lifespan.

That doesn’t sound like the type of future many of us would want for ourselves or for our children.

One where we recycle nearly all our waste? Now that is a future we would all like to be a part of.