Incineration remains an often complex and contradictory issue. A significant part of incinerated waste can be constituted of renewable materials, and therefore be a source of renewable energy. This is the case of the biomass from wood, paper and cardboard. The energy produced by green waste or food waste is therefore used to produce renewable energy. The problem is that this waste is generally mixed in with other types of non-biomass waste, so the energy produced cannot fully be qualified as "renewable" in the strict sense of the term (Non biomass fraction conventionally estimated at 50% of the total waste incinerated).

Considering the energy market, It is preferable to incinerate waste from fossil resources, like oil for instance, to recover the energy produced, as we do in most of our plants. Then starts the second life of waste which becomes a substitution fuel. This replacement energy is an alternative source of energy but not renewable energy. But enough with the semantics.

Hierarchy of waste treatment methods is clear today and defined at EU level. Aim is to curb waste production, which remains fundamental, also for a waste treatment Group such as ours. 2/3 of Veolia Environmental Services' activity is with our industrial clients, the remainder with local authorities. We help our industrial clients reduce the quantity of waste produced or make it less hazardous (quality aspect) for a simple reason: this is economically profitable with regard to current waste treatment prices.

On a constant scope basis in our industrial activity, the quantity of waste treated is decreasing and the tons of waste recycled sharply increasing. The worldwide industrial sector, in particular the chemical industry, is reducing its waste production, even though it produces increasingly complex molecules.

Once reduced the quantity of waste produced, residual materials must be reused in order to protect primary resources. Reuse, recycling and material recovery must take place before energy recovery and disposal. This hierarchy is developed in our companies on a daily basis and is now becoming the norm on a worldwide scale. Waste policies tend to converge at international level, however implementation occurs at different paces depending on the country considered.

Philippe Chalmin mentioned the huge amounts of waste generated by the construction industry, only a fraction of which is truly recyclable. However the considerable volumes at stake makes it a great opportunity. This sector is beginning to evolve and regulate. Certain countries like Norway, where we are present, have instituted the obligation of obtaining a demolition plan for any facility, including individual houses, and for renovation work for private individuals, in order to optimize recycling at each stage of the demolition process.

As Philippe Chalmin pointed out, the current trend is to diversify waste-to-energy treatment methods. While traditional incineration remains the principal alternative for non recycled waste or residue from other types of treatment, we offer far more elaborate processes such as methanization on industrial sites. The methanization of landfill biogas constitutes another form of energy recovery from waste. Another booming sector is the manufacturing of solid recovered fuel, which follows through the logic of waste treatment hierarchy. You take any waste stream, treat it to take out recyclable materials while optimizing extraction. It is then easy to produce energy based on the non recoverable fraction. This goes against the assumption that large incineration plants restrict recycling capacity. The development of incineration has only restricted the recycling capacity in a very small number of countries. However, this can be true locally, region by region or in a given town etc. If you work on the mass to obtain a product which will become fuel, this argument is reversed. This is the only current rational explanation for the very strong development of incineration in Germany, which has a very high recycling rate and where it is considered an excellent solution, while it is harshly criticized in France.

The German policy is to completely halt all disposal methods other than incineration. This policy, for complex reasons, aims at preventing the land filling of organic materials. Within this context, the benefit involved in the manufacturing of solid recovered fuel, an alternative source of energy, lies in its great complementarity with the recycling effort and the production of fuel with a calorific value higher than that of the untreated waste. However, there is one notable drawback: the lifting of the safeguards in terms of air pollution emissions and gas emissions when incinerating household waste or ordinary industrial waste. Our facilities comply with stringent requirements, which probably make it one of the cleanest industries due to the number of regulations and inspections. Modern incinerators do not present public health risks. This would not be the case if we produced large amounts of substitution fuel from waste and if we burned it in less regulated facilities subject to less stringent emission thresholds. Waste professionals intend to optimize energy recovery while drawing attention to the prevention of pollution dispersion into the environment. Stakeholders and elected officials should implement efficient selective waste collections, educate the populations in order to separate waste streams — in particular those detrimental to the end quality of the products — which can either be recycled or incinerated. If pollutants enter the waste streams, they can no longer be properly recovered.

In France, recycling units are too small compared with the North European average. In Germany or England, the capacity ranges from 50,000 to over 100,000 tons a year for recycling only. In France, there are still 10,000 ton centers, the average being around 25/30,000 tons, i.e. below optimal economic size. This is due to administrative issues, more complex in this country. It is also explained by the population density: obviously, you cannot attain the same capacity in extremely densely populated areas such as Germany and England and in the many less densely populated regions of France.