Frequently Asked Questions
1.1 About Covanta Energy:
The group of companies of which Covanta forms a part is the world's largest operator of EfW facilities (by tonnage). It has 45 plants worldwide - mostly in the United States. These facilities process about 20 million tonnes of residual municipal and industrial waste. By using waste as a fuel Covanta generates enough heat and electricity to power one million homes. In addition to dramatically reducing the amount of waste going to landfill, this also prevents some 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere every year.
Covanta entered the UK market in 2005 and offers high quality, safe and efficient solutions for treating residual Municipal waste and Commercial and Industrial waste. It will achieve this through investing in larger scale plants so as to maximise the economic and environmental benefits, passing on some of these benefits to clients, including local authorities and their residents. Covanta in the US has received a wide range of safety and environmental awards in recent years from environmental and government bodies.
1.2 Covanta and the waste hierarchy
Covanta Energy helps local authorities reach their landfill diversion targets, whilst ensuring minimal impact to the environment, by using waste which cannot be economically recycled as a fuel to generate electricity and distributing it back into the National Grid and for use as combined heat and power.
Covanta sees recycling as a vital part of a sustainable waste solution since all Covanta Energy facilities complement recycling efforts in the areas they operate in.
Covanta is a promoter of recycling, composting and reusing waste where possible and employ this ethos in our proposals by separating metals as part of the process and recycling the combustion residues. The Energy-from-Waste process only deals with the residual waste which is left over after recycling and composting.
1.3 What is Energy-from-Waste (EfW)?
Energy-from-Waste (EfW), also known as waste to energy (WTE), is a process that uses household waste (i.e. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)) and Commercial Waste with similar properties as fuel to create electricity, over 50% of which is classed by the Government as renewable. This electricity is fed into the National Grid.
The waste is delivered to combustion chambers where it is burned at high temperatures and reduces it to 10% of its original volume. The heat generated from the combustion chambers heats up water in steel tubes that form the walls of the combustion chambers. The water is turned to steam and sent through a turbine that continuously generates electricity and can also be used to provide heat energy where industrial and domestic needs can be served.
1.4 How much waste does Covanta process and how much energy do they create?
Covanta’s modern Energy-from-Waste facilities safely and securely treat over 18 million tonnes of waste per year generating nearly 9 million megawatt hours of renewable electricity each year.
In March 2010, Covanta engineers calculated that the proposed Rookery South facility will be capable of exporting 55 megawatts of electricity - enough electricity to meet the needs of about 82,500 homes.
1.5 What kind of presence does EfW have globally?
EfW is a proven waste management solution used extensively worldwide. There are 780 facilities around the globe safely converting more than 140 million tons of waste per year into electricity. Countries that extensively utilize EfW include; Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, United States, Singapore, Japan and the UK. Many new facilities are being planned in Europe, Asia and North America.
1.6 Are EfW facilities better for the environment than landfills? What role does EfW play in climate change?
EfW is a sustainable solution; burying waste in a landfill is not. When waste is buried in landfills it decomposes and generates methane. And methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, 20 times more potent than CO2. Therefore, with the objective of reducing global warming, the EU has issued a Directive to limit the landfilling of biodegradable municipal solid waste to 35% of the quantity landfilled in 1995.
EfW is a net reducer of greenhouse gas emissions because it does not create the methane landfill produces, in addition to offsetting the need to burn fossil fuels in power plants.