Waste industry
There are 340 million tons of refuse in Germany each year, with a decreasing tendency. The reasons for this drop amounting to ca. seven percent in 2004 is the decline in population on the one hand and the growing optimisation of processes in the industry on the other hand. Modified frameworks of the energy and disposal industry have a decisive impact on the availability of refuse for the energetic use as well as for recycling. Next to an unparalleled break within the disposal industry by the TASi-realisation in June 2005 and the shutting down of nearly all the waste disposal sites, new standards and stricter environmental regulations considerably influenced other sectors of sub-markets, as well. For example, the immission limit value for thermal waste treatment has been tightened considerably due to the amendment of the 17th BImSchV in 2003. The limit value for the usage of biosolids on agricultural land has been decreased heavily by the amendment of the biosolids regulation.
In the aspired cycle of material around production, utilisation and recycling of products, the recycling as a secondary raw material or substitute fuel particularly gains importance against the background of the ecological and more and more economical relevance. In the sector of energetic recycling an economic operation of sites can only be guaranteed by an integral consideration of fuel input and waste output streams within production sites and power plants. Although substitute fuels are seen as an alternative to fossil power generation, the available quantity and quality have to be regarded much more critically as propagated after the TASi realisation in June 2005. Focussing on recycling, the increasing competition of dual systems offers options within the marketing of recycling capacities.
Extremely diverse material and states of refuse demand well-adjusted disposal routes. Next to the thermal use, e.g. the utilisation of the fuel value within refuse, there is a multitude of recycling possibilities available like the recycling of synthetic material, the agricultural use of biosolids or the constructional utilisation of power plant by-products. Therefore, studies in the sector environment and disposal focus on waste materials and their utilisation methods and illustrate on the basis of the legal and technological framework the status quo as well as the developments in the sectors quantity, material flow and prices.
