Technological elements. Citizens can deposit their household light packaging waste in the specific containers placed in the streets. There are two types of containers depending on the packaging waste type: - Yellow container for plastic, metal and brik packaging. - Blue container for paper and cardboard.
Technological elements. In general, there are four methods to recycle and recovery WEEE: - Manual dismantling and separation of the device's components - Mechanical recycling: removal and crushing of materials - Incineration and refining, to recover metals - Chemical recycling, of precious metals (gold, silver…) from printed circuit boards. Current recycling technologies differ depending on the type of device and its main components. In the WEEE end-of-life treatment several material streams can be obtain: - Metals: the first separation established is between ferrous (iron, steel) and non-ferrous (aluminium, copper, precious metals) metals. Ferrous metal separation through magnetization is simple. Metals can be recovered through crushing, incineration or cooling. Some chemical processes allow precious metals, such as gold or silver, to be separated from the printed circuit boards. - Glass: identification and separation of products with glass elements is complicated because these materials contain heavy metals, particularly television sets and monitors. The cathode ray tube is divided into glass from the screen (composed of barium and strontium) and conical glass from the funnel (with high lead content). To separate and recycle this glass, mechanical and thermal methods are used in conjunction with chemical methods to recover metal dust. - Plastics: the difficulty encountered when recycling plastic is correctly classifying the various polymers. Most of the recyclers use manual separation, although they are starting to implement common polymers identification through automatic technologies. Other mechanical systems include classification through air, sink-float or electrostatic separation. The content of materials varies significantly according to the type of electrical and electronic devices. The table below list the percentages of several materials for some device categories. Table 4. Average material content according to device category (source: Ecotic) Device Category Ferrous Metal Non-ferrous Metal Glass Plastic Others Major Appliances 61% 7% 3% 9% 21% Small Appliances 19% 1% 0% 48% 32% IT Equipment 43% 0% 4% 30% 20% IT Equipment 13% 7% 0% 74% 6% Television sets, radios, etc. 11% 2% 35% 31% 22% Gas Lamps 2% 2% 89% 3% 3%
Technological elements. Just 20 years ago a great deal of domestic and commercial wastes ended up untreated on the rubbish tip. First residents complained about the stench and pollutants such as dioxins were found in the groundwater and drinking water. The digester gas methane emitted from landfills causes 21 times more damage to the climate than carbon dioxide (CO2). Domestic waste landfills became contaminated sites which result in costs for rehabilitation and after-care amounting to billions.5 The alternatives to landfills are waste reduction and recycling strategies. Secondary to not creating waste, there are various alternatives to landfills. In the last 15-20 years, alternative methods of waste disposal to landfill and incineration (e.g. anaerobic digestion, composting and mechanical biological treatment) have gained acceptance and were established by regulation. Following recent findings from research and practical experience, the Landfill Ordinance added supplementary landfill classification criteria and emplacement rules that open the way for the mechanical-biological treatment of residual waste. As well as requiring that biogenic constituents be largely biodegraded, these involve separating off high calorific value constituents such as plastics, wood, paper and cardboard (40-50% average content). These high calorific value constituents are to be used for energy in high-efficiency power stations and industrial co- combustion plants, instead of being buried in landfills as they were in the past. Finally, landfills that did not comply with the Ordinance had to be closed by 2009 at the latest.
Technological elements. Treatment So, what happens to the waste once it is sorted, collected and transported to recycling facilities? The following section will briefly describe the different way of processing waste.
Technological elements. Separation and pre-treatment Separation of household waste and recyclables like metal, glass, paper, cardboard, PET and textiles is done at the household level. Most Swiss municipalities offer a multi-container collection system where the recyclables are separated at the point of collection; early separation of the recyclables at household level has proven to be more cost-efficient and assures a higher quality of the recycled goods. Paper and cardboard is collected separately through a door-to-door collection. Mechanical-biological pre-treatment of household waste prior to incineration or final disposal is not done in Switzerland. In contrast to Germany and Austria, where mechanical-biological pre- treatment is widely accepted and implemented, this technology has not entered Switzerland for various reasons. Even when such plants allow reducing the volume of the waste the resulting organic fraction from such plants is of poor quality and a high share of the produced fractions needs to be incinerated. The household waste is directed towards one of the 29 municipal solid waste incineration plants which are distributed over Switzerland and which all use the calorific energy of the waste for producing heat and electricity. The waste incineration plants nowadays provide about 2% of the final energy use in Switzerland. The cost for incineration are actually on average at 140 € per ton. Figure 16. Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Plant Recycling and recovery More than 50% of the generated household waste in Switzerland gets recycled. Switzerland is reaching a recycling quota for aluminium cans and glass above 90% and for paper, cardboard, tin and PET above 80%. For batteries this value is around 70%. With these levels Switzerland is leading in Europe. This is based on early environmental education but also due to the fact of being a small country and at the same time a touristic hotspot which favours the promotion of cleanliness of the environment. The service levels and the convenience for separating different waste fractions in an early stage are considered as key elements for reaching such high recycling quota. The financing scheme in which the discarded household waste in most of the municipalities needs to be paid per weight or volume whereas the recycled fractions can be disposed of free of cost at one of the municipal collection points or by curb side collection are important factors for incentivising separation and recycling of waste. Material recycling ...
Technological elements. The installation of a selection, methanisation and composting plant is twice cheaper than an incineration plant with the same capacity. Likewise, the running cost is a 30 or 40% cheaper, concretely around 70 euros per ton. On the other hand, the combination of methanisation and final composting enables to get high quality compost for its use in agriculture in a minor period of time.
