Energy recovery plans stall

Jiří Komrska, 56, has operated the giant crane used for manipulating trash at the waste-to-energy (WtE) plant in Prague 10-Malešice ever since it opened in 1998. From his rotating chair with a joystick for an armrest, he dips and raises the metal claw, moving the fresh municipal waste to mix with the old, then picking up the refuse and dropping 2,400 kg (2.6 tons) into one of the plant's four furnaces.

Despite their size, waste-burning facilities account for only 20 percent of the plant's technology, says Tomáš Žižka, manager of technology and investment at the plant, owned by Pražské služby.

The dominant component of the plant is the new filtration system, soon to be supplemented by a new cogenerative unit expected to produce electricity for 20,000 Prague households by the end of 2010. Once construction ends, the plant that now processes 80 percent of Prague's waste will boost the capacity to effectively treat all of the city's trash.

Given the city's poor efficiency record, however, this move toward energy recovery appears overly ambitious. In 2007, the latest statistics available, a mere 9.7 percent of municipal waste was converted into energy, while 86.2 percent ended up at landfills.

Industry experts say the Environment Ministry's stance on WtE plants is shifting amid growing pressure to meet EU waste-reduction targets. Still, the move away from land filling remains sluggish.

"The problem is that we have an Environment Ministry that has always stood against energy recovery," said Jiřina Vyštejnová of the Association of Operators of Technologies for Ecological Utilization of Energy (STEO), an NGO.

The current waste economy doesn't lend WtE plants any financial support, but the Environment Ministry is looking to devote a slice of its budget for the construction of such plants in early 2010, said Zdeňka Bubeníková of the ministry's waste department.

In an April 28 statement for the environmentalist publication Ekolist, Bubeníková writes that energy recovery plays a key role in the country's struggle to fulfill EU targets. Decreasing biodegradable waste at landfills holds priority, as biowaste comprises a third of the country's municipal waste.

Although EU targets obligate the Czech Republic to gradually decrease the proportion of landfill-bound biowaste, 28 percent more biowaste than the 2010 target wound up at landfills two years ago.

Bubeníková predicts the target for next year won't be met, and sanctions from the EU will follow.

In response, the public sector recently launched several campaigns to reduce biowaste. "Give Biowaste a Chance," co-funded by Prague's City Council, encourages the public to compost, while Pražské služby's "Biowaste Belongs in the Compost Bin" calls for greater recycling.

Milan Havel of pro-environment NGO Arnika said that such campaigns, despite boosting recycling and composting, will increase municipal waste. "Recycling biowaste is easier than composting," he explained. "People will stop composting at home. Nothing bolsters the production of waste like having a place to dispose of it."

Havel said the potential of waste minimization remains untapped. "Both landfills and waste energy plants are unethical ways to manage waste, because you are encouraging a consumerist lifestyle."

Instead of approaching the EU waste hierarchy from the bottom up - from land filling to energy recovery to recycling and eventually prevention - state officials should focus on the pyramid's top, which preaches minimization, he said.

Still, energy recovery remains in the interest of WtE plant owners and technology manufacturers, Havel said. With electricity prices on the rise, Pražské služby's investment into the cogenerative unit will pay off, Bláha confirmed.

On the landfill end, the City Council's income from fees might postpone the closing of Prague's only dump in Prague 8-Ďáblice scheduled for 2010, the landfill's spokeswoman, Alexandra Kostřicová, suggested. Should the Ďáblice site shut down, Kostřicová said the landfill will continue to operate from a newly-acquired site in Uhy, a small town 40 kilometers north of Prague.

Martina Čermáková can be reached at
specialsection@praguepost.com