Trends in the use ofsolid recovered fuels

IEA Bioenergy: Task 36:2020: 01

Trends in the use of solid recovered fuels
Authors: Giovanna Pinuccia Martignon (RSE)
Edited by Inge Johansson and Mar Edo (RISE)

Photo on cover page, credit: Mar Edo (RISE)

Copyright © 2020 IEA Bioenergy. All rights Reserved
ISBN, 978-1-910154-72-4

Published by IEA Bioenergy

The IEA Bioenergy Technology Collaboration Programme (IEA Bioenergy TCP) is organised under the auspices of the International Energy Agency (IEA) but is functionallyand legally autonomous. Views, findings and publications of the IEA Bioenergy TCP do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the IEA Secretariat or of its individual
Member countries.

Abstract
The Report provides a background reference on terminology and origin (waste stream andtreatment processes) of solid recovered fuels (SRF) and a brief analysis of the SRF market in a
selection of countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. The focus is on the current role of SRF(production and final end uses) in the waste-to-energy value chains and the main drivers andbarriers that affect the current situation and the future perspectives of the use of SRF for energy
recovery.
Complementary to prepare the residual waste stream for material recovery and disposal in landfill,treatment processes that can produce waste derived fuels, more suitable for energy recovery than
the incoming waste stream, have been widely implemented in some countries. Since the early
1990s, the production of secondary fuels has become a quite popular waste management option indifferent countries in response to a growing market demand.
SRF are a subset of the larger family of Refuse Derived Fuels (RDFs), produced from nonhazardous waste streams, differing from a “generic” RDF due to that it is a fuel that meetsrequirements (i.e. classification and specification) defined by a national or international standard.
In other words, SRF is a regulated and RDF (generally) a non-regulated secondary fuel. A
complementary assumption is that for the SRF production, preparation for re-use or efficientmaterial recycling should be used. The added value of SRF lies in the fact that: it is wellcharacterised and known for its properties, the technical and environmental needs related to thespecific use for energy recovery; it can really be complementary to the waste recycling priority,
based on the treatment technologies currently available for its production. The compliance with astandard does not hinder the fact that a further SRF compliance with other or more stringent
quality requirements for fuel properties could be voluntary asked by fuel end-users (e.g. cementkilns, power plants, gasification plants) through a private commitment (specification) with the
producer, so to receive a fuel that fits well with their own economic/technological needs. Examples
of such agreed specifications are provided in the report.
SRFs are produced from individual or mixed streams of municipal (MSW), commercial (CW),
industrial (IW) and construction and demolition (CDW) wastes. These streams include different
shares of waste fractions and also show a different elemental composition. Different types anddegrees of treatments are applied by producers that modify the properties of the incoming waste
and determine the achievable yield in the outgoing waste fuels in both a quantitative and aqualitative term. These treatments are often some sort of mechanical treatment (MT) or amechanical-biological treatment (MBT). It is important to note that SRFs put in the market (aswell as RDFs) never identify a univocal fuel but fuels of which the properties (e.g. composition,
physic-chemical properties) might differ from each other. The achieved degree of quality isconsequent to fuel origin (waste stream), production processes and, of course - as main driving
factor - the fuel quality requested by the market demand (the technological, economic andenvironmental requirements of its final end-user).
The market demand for SRF involves, in Europe and in other countries, facilities that fall into thewaste management system (incineration: from a disposal to an energy recovery operation) andenergy-intensive industrial sectors (e.g. cement and industry, thermal power plants), for which
the use of secondary fuels as substitute of the fossil ones (e.g. coal, pet-coke) means a benefit interm of both less dependence on fossil fuels and lower environmental impact. Locally, otherindustrial energy from waste (EfW) plants exploit the potential of secondary fuels (e.g. in cocombustion with other waste streams or residues) ensuring an economic benefit (coverage of the1

own energy need; sale of electricity to the national grid; access to economical supports). A
quantitative figure of the SRF produced and sent to specific end uses is provided for most of theexamined countries.
Energy-intensive industrial sectors such as cement and lime kiln or coal fired power plants arehighlighted as the main expected end-users of SRF, at least in most of the European countries.
Some now existing barriers have been pointed out such as waste management policies, availabilityof SRF of suitable quality, high local bureaucracy and lack of public acceptance. These barriers
have been reviewed with respect to the European cement industry but are in many cases valid
locally to other types of end uses, such as incineration, co-incineration and dedicated combustion
plants.
Countries such as India and China that have to manage high annual amounts of wastes, as well as
satisfy their internal demand for energy, recently started to develop domestic pre-treatment
systems to SRF. They have also become a quite consistent importer of SRF/RDF fromneighbouring producing countries. The ongoing intensive growth of the incineration industry in
China, which seems to focus primarily on the use of the bubbling fluidised bed (BFB) technology,
could become a large end-user of SRF.
The transboundary shipment of SRF and RDF is significant, also in Europe. As an example, theUnited Kingdom exports significant amounts to countries like Germany, Netherlands and Sweden.
The trade is driven by different factors but policy, waste treatment capacities and current market
prices (including factors like taxes) are some of the main reasons.
Currently there is ongoing work within the international Standards organisation (ISO) to develop
standards on SRF. This might be an important tool to increase the trust in SRF as a secondary fueland thus overcome some of the market barriers caused by the lack of a common denominationand methods to determine the quality in a comparable way. The work also includes countries
where the use of SRF/RDF is quite limited today.
The waste hierarchy clearly recognizes a role for waste-to-energy and, in particular, to waste fuels
produced through processes complementary to material recycling; this implies fuels that origin
from waste streams no more suitable for re-use, preparation for re-use or an efficient material
recycling. Solid recovered fuels (SRF) would meet that requirement and contribute to the expectedchange in the waste-to-energy feedstock (improvement of the recyclability and reusability ofresidues such as plastics, wood, paper, and biodegradable waste) and towards a most energyefficient waste-to-energy system.
Another area where development of the use of SRF is foreseen is the thermochemical recycling ofwaste. A lot of attention is being put into this and it is believed to be an important building stone
to a more circular economy. In this case the SRF could play an important role, not as solid
recovered fuel but rather as a solid recovered feedstock.

2

Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 5
Background ..................................................................................................................... 8
Terminology ............................................................................................................................ 8
Origin, production processes and specific market demands for quality........................................... 10

The market of SRF and RDF: status and perspectives........................................................... 23
Asia ...................................................................................................................................... 23
Japan ................................................................................................................................ 23
Korea ................................................................................................................................ 25
Thailand ............................................................................................................................ 26
India ................................................................................................................................. 28
China ................................................................................................................................ 29
Trade within Asia ................................................................................................................ 31
Africa.................................................................................................................................... 32
Egypt ................................................................................................................................ 32
EUROPE ................................................................................................................................ 33
Spain ................................................................................................................................ 33
Germany ........................................................................................................................... 33
Austria .............................................................................................................................. 36
Ireland and United Kingdom................................................................................................. 39
France ............................................................................................................................... 39
Italy .................................................................................................................................. 42
Sweden ............................................................................................................................ 46
Finland .............................................................................................................................. 46
Portugal ............................................................................................................................ 47
Croatia .............................................................................................................................. 48
Market and quality aspects of the SRF/RDF ............................................................................ 50
Barriers ............................................................................................................................. 59

Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 63
General ................................................................................................................................. 63
Main use today ...................................................................................................................... 63
Potential for the future ............................................................................................................ 64

References .................................................................................................................... 65
Annex 1 ........................................................................................................................ 71
Plastics and post-consumer plastic wastes ................................................................................. 713

4

Introduction
Waste-to-energy (WtE) is a broad term that identifies a value chain aimed to exploit the energy
potential of wastes by means of the generation of electricity and/or heat in Energy from Waste(EfW) plants. Within that value chain, wastes can follow a “first address” or a “second address”
pathway to EfW plants, as Figure 1 schematically shows.

Figure 1. A schematic view of the waste-to-energy value chain. Dashed arrows and boxes identify
paths/fuels that do not fall within the specific field of interest of this report.

The first pathway is based on a direct use of the waste as produced, without any pre-treatment,
for energy generation. Incineration is historically a way widely followed as waste disposal (as analternative to landfill) that over time became an option to recover electricity and thermal energy
from wastes. As an example, in the Europe Union (EU-28) the amount of municipal waste
incinerated has risen by 32 million tonnes (Mton), since 1995, and accounted for 64 Mton in 2015
[1] (in the reference period, the total municipal waste landfilled fell by 83 Mton, from 144 Mton in
1995 to 61 Mton in 2015). In the United States [2] about 262.4 Mton of municipal solid waste(MSW) were generated in 2015, of which 33.6 Mton were combusted with energy recovery inincineration plants. In addition, 67.8 Mton was recycled, 23.4 Mton composted and 137.7 Mton
landfilled. Worldwide [3], the number of Waste-to-energy (WtE) facilities for MSW reached a totalof 1618 plants in 2016.
According to the second pathway, individual/mixed waste streams are subjected to a pretreatment in mechanical treatment (MT) /mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plants. Suchtreatment processes that prepare the residual waste stream for a disposal in landfill throughsorting out waste for material recovery and to produce waste derived fuels, are widely
implemented in some countries. In those plants, waste fractions that cannot easily be recycled,
are sorted out into a fuel fraction for energy recovery.
The secondary fuels in Figure 1, more or less refined with respect to the incoming waste so that5

their economic (e.g. calorific value), technical (e.g. form and particle size, ash and moisture
content, chemical properties) and environmental (e.g. chemical properties; biomass content)
characteristics allow a better exploitation of the waste potential. This allows them to be used forother energy applications than the normal waste incineration plants.
As a response to growing market demand the production of secondary fuels has become a quite
popular waste management option in different countries, originating in Europe.
There are different end-users in the market of SRF/RDF with different drivers for the use:•

Incineration plants that want to move from disposal to energy recovery (although it isfully possible to reach energy recovery status even with the first pathway).

•

Industrial sectors like the cement industry and coal power plants where the use of
secondary fuels substitutes fossil fuels (e.g. coal, pet-coke). This generates benefits in theform of less dependence on fossil fuels and lower environmental impact.

•

Locally, other industrial EfW plants exploit the potential of secondary fuels (e.g. in cocombustion with other waste streams or residues) ensuring an economic benefit. The
economic benefits could be through covering the own energy need; sale of electricity to
the national grid and access to economical supports like green certificates or otherincentives to support renewable energy sources (RES).

•

Un upcoming end-use that is foreseen is the use of SRF/RDF for thermochemical recycling
processes. This could either be aimed at converting the waste into liquid or gaseous fuels
or to convert it into platform chemicals to be used for the production of new products.

The produced secondary fuels in practice include a large family of fuels differing in origin,composition and quality. Often, they have been generically referred to as refuse-derived fuel(RDF), without compositional quality and environmental parameters well described. This is due tolack of requirements to comply with a well-defined regulation or standard. The European Board forStandardisation (CEN), for example, moved in this direction through the development of standards[4,5] that introduce the concept of “standardised” secondary fuel - the solid recovered fuels (SRF)- by setting the need for producer to classify and specify the fuel. More countries outside Europe
have also identified this need and either developed their own sets of standards or adopted theEuropean ones. Some of the main drivers for the development of SRF standards were to create
confidence for the fuel as well as to make available a common and well shared language andanalytical procedure for the produced fuels placed on the market. The confidence in the product isessential regarding aspects such as potential impacts on human and environment health, impact
on plant equipment, risks for end-users and to gain the public and competent authorities’
acceptance.
The waste hierarchy (Figure 2) is now a widely accepted and pursued cornerstone of policies andlegislation on waste. The hierarchy guides towards a long-term and sustainable waste
management and is in a close agreement with the equally shared transition towards a circular
economy [6] and decarbonisation of industrial activities. The waste hierarchy defines an order ofpriority in waste management aimed to minimize adverse effects on the environment and thehuman health and to optimize resource efficiency, highlighting the preferred options: waste
prevention, reuse and recycling. Disposal in landfills or incineration with little or no energy
recovery are the least favourable options.

6

WTE
Processing waste into
solid liquid, gaseous fuels

WTE
Incineration and co-incineration
with a high level energy recovery
WTE
Incineration/co-incineration withoutor with a low level energy recovery
Utilisation of captured landfill gas

Figure 2. The Waste Hierarchy and the role of Waste-to-Energy (Adapted from: EU COM (2107)34).

According to the mentioned strategic choices, for example the Action Plan promoted by theEuropean Commission [7, 8] and the framework of common laws on waste management (Circular
Economy Package) [9–12], recognize a role for waste-to-energy [4] and, in particular, to waste
fuels produced through processes substantially complementary to waste recycling. In practice thatmeans fuels that origin from waste streams not more suitable for re-use, preparation for re-use oran efficient material recycling.
Changes in waste-to-energy feedstocks are expected based on the goals of recyclability andreusability that could divert residues, such as plastic, wood, paper and biodegradable wastes, fromthe options currently adopted for their management which include the energy recovery(incineration or co-incineration). Waste minimisation will also influence the feedstock available forenergy recovery.
A waste-to-energy sector more focused on the treatment of non-recyclable waste is a critical point
to avoid potential economic losses and barriers to the achievement of higher recycling rates.
This Report provides first a background reference on terminology and origin (waste stream andtreatment processes) of SRF followed by a brief analysis of the SRF market in different countries,
in term of current situation (production and final end uses). In addition, it highlights some of themain drivers and barriers that can affect its future perspectives.

7

Background
TERMINOLOGY
Solid fuels that are produced through processing of non-hazardous mono or mixed waste streams 1
to make them a suitable feedstock for energy recovery, are here assumed as secondary fuels.
They will in this report be named RDF (refuse derived fuel) (Figure 3). The waste streams sent toenergy-from-waste (EfW) plants as generated (e.g. the not pre-treated and unsorted waste)
mentioned in Figure 2, are therefore in this report excluded from the field of secondary fuels.
Solid Recovered Fuels (SRF) are depicted in Figure 3 as a subset of the large family of RDFs,
based on the assumption that a secondary fuel, produced from not hazardous waste streams, canbe considered an SRF or an RDF whether it meets or not requirements (i.e. classification andspecification) defined by a national or international standard for SRF. It is in this context the term
SRF will be used in this report. This does not necessarily imply that SRF always are of a better
quality than RDF- but that the quality is known and defined according to standards. In otherwords, SRF is always regulated by standards while RDF is a wider term not necessarily
encompassed by any standards (even though they exist in some markets).
As a guiding principle from the waste hierarchy all secondary fuels should be based on waste
streams that are not suitable for re-use, preparation for re-use or efficient material recycling. The
meaning is to identify a fuel product – the SRF, whose added value is to be more defined (Figure4) than a generic RDF not submitted to specific standardisation.

Figure 3. The value chain of energy recovery from wastes through the production of secondary fuels. The
status of end-of-waste (EoW) is only possible in specific countries like Italy and Austria.

1

Mixed waste streams include waste of different origin (e.g. urban, industrial and commercial)

8

RDF

Is it a fuel that complies with a national orinternational standard for SRF?

NO

RDF

YES

MT/MBTplantsIs it a fuel with self-Declaration?

NO

RDF

YES
Non-hazardous
WastesIs it a fuel with an ExternalCertification?

NO

SRF

YES

Certified SRF(trademark quality label)

Figure 4. A schematic approach to distinguish between RDF and SRF.

The assumptions above proposed on the meaning of SRF and RDF are the ones being used in thisreport.
Figure 4 shows that the SRF can further became a certified SRF (quality trademark) if produced
according to a defined quality assurance procedure to respond to a market demand (fuel with awell-defined quality).
The above does not hinder the fact that an SRF compliance with further or more stringent quality
requirements for fuel properties can be voluntary asked by fuel end-users (e.g. cement kilns,
power plants, gasification plants) through a private commitment (specification) with the producer,
so to receive a fuel that fit well with their own economic/technological needs. It is worth
mentioning that the use of such voluntary, private commitment is foreseen by standards on SRF,
such us the EN 15539 [13] and the ongoing development of ISO 21640 [14].
SRF are mainly traded and managed as waste. However, they can became a fuel product in all
aspects in some countries (e.g. Italy, Austria [15, 16]). Then the SRF have to comply with legally
set mandatory requirements that allow the SRF to be declared as end-of-waste (Figure 3) so thatthe fuel is no more submitted to the waste legislation.
It is important to note that SRFs put in the market, as well as the RDFs, never identify a univocal
fuel, but fuels of which the qualitative properties (e.g. composition, physico-chemical properties)
might differ from each other. The achieved degree of quality depends on the fuel origin (waste
stream), production processes and, of course, to a main driving factor: the need for a fuel with aquality that complies with the market demand (the technological, economic and environmental
requirements of its final end-user).

9

ORIGIN, PRODUCTION PROCESSES AND SPECIFIC MARKET DEMANDSFOR QUALITY
SRFs can be produced locally from individual or mixed streams of municipal (MSW), commercial(CW), industrial (IW) and construction and demolition (CDW) wastes. These streams include
different share of waste fractions which influences their elemental composition. As indicativereference, some results of studies carried out in MT plants that produce SRF from MSW streams[17] (Table 1 and Table 2), from IW and CW streams [18] (Table 3 and Table 4) and from CDW
streams 19 (Table 5 and Table 6) are here provided.
Table 1. Results for incoming and outgoing streams from a MT plant: MSW, SRF and other processed
waste streams – Some analytical results [28].

Table 2. Results for incoming and outgoing streams from a MT plant: MSW, SRF and other processed
waste streams – Some analytical results [28].

10Table 3. Results for incoming and outgoing streams from a MT plant: C&IW stream, SRF stream, otherprocessed waste streams – Composition [18].

Table 4. Results for incoming and outgoing streams from a MT plant: C&IW stream, SRF stream, otherprocessed waste streams – Some analytical results [18].

Table 5. Results for incoming and outgoing streams from a MT plant: C&DW stream; SRF stream; otherprocessed streams - Composition [18].].

11

Table 6. Results for incoming and outgoing streams from a MT plant: C&DW stream; SRF stream; otherprocessed waste streams - Some analytical results [18].

By using different processes in the production of SRF the producers the properties of the incoming
waste will be changed, and the chosen process will determine the achievable yield in the outgoing
waste fuels in both quantitative and qualitative terms.
In mechanical treatment plants (MT) plants several operations/sorting techniques can be used to
produce SRF. This could as an example be primary shredding, screening, magnetic and eddy
current separation, pneumatic separation, optical sorting, near-infrared (NIR) sorting, andsecondary shredding. The purpose of using various sorting techniques is to selectively separate
inert material, metals and highly chlorinated/pollutant waste components from the input wastematerial into small streams in order to obtain a high yield of SRF with specific quality features.
Figure 5 provides an example of a multistage processing applied in an Austrian treatment plant toproduce medium (coarse material) and premium (fine material) quality SRF with cement kilns asfinal end-user [20]. The inputs to the process are commercial waste, packaging waste, industrial
waste, and pre-processed household waste. Figure 5 shows the medium and high quality SRF

obtained in the process, while Table 7 and Table 8 summarize their sorting and chemical analyses
respectively.

12

Figure 5. Multistage processing scheme adopted in an Austrian treatment plants for the combined
production of SRF medium quality (i.e. coarse material) and SRF premium quality (i.e. fine material).
Figure from [20].

Table 7. Results of manual sorting analysis of the medium and high quality SRFs produced according to
the treatment process showed in Figure 4, compared to those of a low quality SRF [20].

SRF low
quality, wt%

SRF medium
quality, wt%

SRF high
quality wt%

PPCT (paper, plastic, composites,
textiles)

35,6

56,2

52,4

INERT (glass, inert, metals,
hazardous wastes)

10,6

7,1

1,1

Fine fraction and organic(biogenic fraction)

53,8

36,7

46,5

Fractions13

Table 8. Results for selected physico-chemical properties of the medium and high quality SRFs produced
according to the treatment processes showed in Figure 5, compared to those of a low quality SRF. [Datafrom [20]. (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Parameter

Unit

SRF

SRF

low qualitythSRF

medium qualitythhigh quality

medi
an

80
perc

median80
perc

median80th
perc

Moisture

%, ar

26,5

31,4

25,0

29,1

15,1

29,3

Net calorific value(NCV)

MJ/kg, ar

8,9

10,3

15,5

16,8

19,3

22,8

MJ/kg, d

14,3

15,7

21,2

21,4

25,0

26,6

Ash

%, ar

29,6

35,2

12,7

15,8

12,4

14,8

Cl

g/kg, d

9,2

12,3

10,8

22,2

13,8

17,1

S

g/kg, d

2,9

3,7

3,4

4,6

3,3

4,5

Total C

w%, d

-

-

46,9

48,6

52,8

58,3

Fossil C02
emission factor

g/MJ, d

-

-

34,5

41,3

43,2

55,7

A scheme of the multistage process adopted in the Austrian MT plant of the ThermoTeam company
to recovery materials and produce a premium quality SRF for use in cement kilns from mixed
wastes [21] is presented in Figure 6.

14

Figure 6. Multistage processing scheme of 100,000 tonnes per year ThermoTeam plant for separation of
Fe and non-FE metals, PVC, PET, heavyweight Fraction and manufacturing of premium SRF [21].

15Figure 7. Scheme of the single flow process applied in the Italian MBT plant of the Ecoprogetto company
to produce SRF used in coal fired power. Figure from [22].

An example of a Mechanical Biological treatment process is depicted in Figure 7 that refers to an
Italian MBT plant producer of SRF from MSW with coal power plants as typical end user [22]. In
this case, a treatment based on a “single flow process” was adopted that allows a high conversionof the waste stream into SRF with respect to a more classic two paths process (Figure 8). The
process includes a biostabilization stage (Figure 9) aimed to guarantee dehumidification forbiological pathway (no energy or fuel consumption for heating), sanitation and stabilization oforganic compounds. As an example, the product in from the process depicted in Figure 7 has astable moisture content (10–15% max), mass reduction (30% by weight), and an increase of thecalorific value (+35% with respect to the MSW stream). Figure 10 provides a scheme of theseparation process applied in that MBT plant. The SRF generated in the process is in the form of
fluff and requires to be densified to produce a final pelletized SRF sent to the end-user.

Figure 8. A scheme of a two paths MBT process Figure from [22].

16Figure 9. The biocell stabilization under operation in the Italian MBT plant of the Ecoprogetto company toproduce SRF used in coal fired power. Figure from [22].

Figure 10. Scheme of the separation applied in the Italian MBT plant of the Ecoprogetto company toproduce SRF used in coal fired power Figure from [22].

Further examples of applied mechanical biological processing schemes in Croatia are reported in[23].
Regarding SRF quality, some examples of requirements (i.e. typical values and/or limit values)
occurring in voluntary agreements among producers and end users are provided in Table 9.

17

Table 9. SRF quality requirements set in a specification agreed upon producer and end user (coalpower plant, 2016, Italy) - Required class of SRF: 3:3:3–Data from personal communication of an
Italian SRF end user [24]. (ar: as received; d: dry basis).
Parameter

Unit

Typical value

Limit value

Ash

%, d

≤20

≤20

Moisture

%, ar

≤15

≤15

NCV

MJ/kg, arvalue set in table 1 of15539
for the required class codevalue set in table 1 of 15539
for the required class code

NCV

MJ/kg, d≥15≥15value set in table 1 of the EN
15539 standard for therequired class code
≤150

Cl

%, d

Sb

mg/kg, dvalue set in table 1 of the
EN 15539 standard for therequired class code
≤70As

mg/kg, d

≤9

≤15

Cd

mg/kg, d

≤7

≤10

Cr

mg/kg, d

≤100

≤500

Co

mg/kg, d

≤7.5

≤100

Cu

mg/kg, d

≤1300

≤2000

Pb

mg/kg, d

≤200

≤600

Mn

mg/kg, d

≤400

≤600

Hg

mg/kg, dvalue set in table 1 of the
EN 15539 standard for therequired class codevalue set in table 1 of the EN
15539 standard for therequired class codeNi

mg/kg, d

≤40

≤200

Tl

mg/kg, d

≤1

≤10

V

mg/kg, d

≤7.5

≤150

∑ Heavy metals

mg/kg, dto be declared

to be declared(a)This agreed specification requires that SRF complies with UNI EN 15539 and the Italian UNI
TR 11581(a) Sum of heavy metals does not include Hg, Tl and Cd according to EN 15539:201118

Table 10. SRF quality requirements set in a specification agreed upon producer and end users (cocombustion power plants and cement kilns, 2016, Italy). – Data from personal communication of an
Italian SRF producer [25]. (as: as received; d: dry basis).

Parameter

Unit

Limit values (min – max)

Ash

%, d

15

30

Moisture

%, ar

10

30

NCV

kcal/kg, ar

3583

9500

Cl

%, d

0.6

1.5

S

%, d

0.3

0.8

Pb (volatile)

mg/kg, d

100

200

Cr

mg/kg, d70833

Cu (soluble)

mg/kg, d

300

500

Mn

mg/kg, d

217

500

Ni

mg/kg, d

40

333

As

mg/kg, d

9

15

PCB

mg/kg, d

0.5

30

Zn

mg/kg, d

500

1000

Co

mg/kg, d

67

100

Cd

mg/kg, d

27

33

Sn

mg/kg, d

70

100

Sb

mg/kg, d

20

267

Hg

mg/kg, d

1.0

1.7

Tl

mg/kg, d

3.3

10

V

mg/kg, d

20

100

Cn

mg/kg, d2

2

F

mg/kg, d

1000

1000

Be

mg/kg, d

50

50

Ba

mg/kg, d

200

200

Se

mg/kg, d55Te

mg/kg, d

10

10

19

Table 11. SRF quality requirements set in a specification agreed upon producer and end user (cement
industry, 2016, Italy). Data from personal communication of an Italian SRF producer [25]. (as: asreceived; d: dry basis.; TE: total concentration;).

Parameter

Unit

Limit value

NCV

GJ/t, ar

≥15

Cl

%, d

1

S

%, d

nd

Hg

mg/kg, d1

As

mg/kg, d5

Cd

mg/kg, d3

Cr

mg/kg, d100

Cu

mg/kg, d500

Pb

mg/kg, d240

Mn

mg/kg, d250

Ni

mg/kg, d30

Tl

mg/kg, d1

Co

mg/kg, d18

Sb

mg/kg, d50

Vmg/kg, d

10

IPA (total)

mg/kg, d30

PCB

mg/kg, d3

PCDD/PCDF

ng TE/kg, d20

20

Table 12. RDF quality requirements set in a specification agreed upon producer and a cement industry.
Data from [26]. (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Parameter

Unit

Limit value

NCV

MJ/kg, ar>16

Moisture

%, ar

<25

Ash

%, d

<15

Cl

%, ar

<0,8

Hg

mg/kg, d<1,5

Cd

mg/kg, d<9Tl

mg/kg, d<2

Br

mg/kg, d<0,25I

mg/kg, d

<0,25

Sb

mg/kg, d<150

As

mg/kg, d<20

Cr

mg/kg, d<150

Co

mg/kg, d<20

Cu

mg/kg, d<500

Pb

mg/kg, d<200

Mn

mg/kg, d<150

Ni

mg/kg, d<70

Sn

mg/kg, d<50

Vmg/kg, d<100

21

Table 13. Typical end-user demands applied (2006) in German cement kilns. Data from [27]. (d: drybasis).

Key
Parameter

Range oftypical concentrations (a)Typicalconcentrations (b)UnitValues

Unit

ValuesPb

mg/MJ

0,09 - 25

mg/kg d

400

Cd

mg/MJ

0,01 - 0,7

mg/kg d

9

Cr

mg/MJ

0,09 - 21

mg/kg d

250

Ni

mg/MJ

0,1 - 25mg/kg d

100

Hg

mg/MJ

0,01 - 0,1

mg/kg d0,5 – 1Tl

mg/MJ

<0,01 - 0,1

mg/kg d

1 -2

Zn

mg/MJ

0,5 - 625

mg/kg d--As

mg/kg d13

Co

mg/kg d12

Cu

mg/kg d700

Mn

mg/kg d500

Sb

mg/kg d120

V

mg/kg d25

Sn

mg/kg d70(a) VDI 2094 Germany (2003). "Emissionsminderung Zementwerke/Emission control
cement industry, VDI 2094, March 2003(b) Germany, V. (2006). "Cement manufacturing industries, German contribution

About the use of SRF in gasification plants, the following quality requirement (i.e. limit values) are
mentioned in literature [28] that refer to SRFs utilises in the Lahti gasification plant in Finland:-

18–24 MJ/kg,db NCV;-

<0.1 mg/kg, db Hg.

--<30 wt.% and of <15 wt.% the moisture and the ash content, respectively;<0.6 wt.%, db Cl

Experiences carried out in the SRF-BFB plant at Anjalankoski (Finland) [29] pointed out thechlorine content as the main problem (i.e. corrosion risk and fouling) and a need for a moisture
content of the SRF within 15–30% and an ash content within 8–12%. Regarding chlorine content,
preferred values <0.6 wt.% are reported for co-combustion in fluidized bed boilers andgasification, and values in the range 0,6–0.9 wt.% for the use of SRF in cement kilns [30].

22The market of SRF and RDF: status and perspectives
ASIA
Japan

The total amount of municipal solid waste generated in Japan accounted for about 44.3 Mton/y in2014 and 42.8 Mton/y in 2015 [31]. RDFs are produced from the so called “general waste” that
includes household and commercial wastes, according to the national legislation on waste. The
RDF is dried by chemical addition and pelletized; includes the putrescible fraction of the waste
stream, and it shall comply with requirements set in dedicated national standards [32] such as
NCV >12,500 kJ/kg, moisture content <10% or ash content < 20%.
A number of 50 RDF facilities is reported in the country [33]. RDFs quantitatively accounted forabout 270,000 ton in 2013 [33] and 300,000 ton in 2015 [35], showing a decreasing trend if we
consider the previous volume of around 650,000 ton/year [31]. With a reported average NCV of
about 18 MJ/kg [35], RDF produced in Japan is essentially intended to be used in urban WtE
facilities, e.g. mainly power generation plants to satisfy the local demand for electricity; otherend-users are cement and pulp industries and district heating facilities.
A further secondary fuel named RPF (Refuse derived Paper and Plastics Densified Fuel), is also
produced in Japan. RPF is a pelletized waste fuel produced from dry and non-hazardous paper
and plastic waste from industrial origin (residual wood, textile and rubber waste streams areadmitted too as long as the standardized fuel quality requirement are met). The National
standards [34], well recognized and applied by all the operators, regulate the matter of RPF, ofwhich the JIS Z7311:2010 classifies it in four qualitative “classes”. One of them is the so-called
RPF-coke which is defined by a high quality RPF with a calorific value >33 MJ/kg close to that ofcoal. It differs from the above-mentioned RDF by origin (i.e. waste streams) and properties (i.e.
lower values for moisture and ash content; higher calorific values).
Around 1,2 Mton/y of RPF were produced [31,35] in the year 2013 and 2015 from several
operating RPF facilities (85 in 2013 and 227 in 2015). This data is also supported by results of anationwide survey performed by the Japan RPF Industry Association [31] (Figure 12). The survey
shows a fast increase on the demand of RDF between 2004 and 2009, followed by a plateau(around 1,6 Mton/year) until 2016, when it rose to 1,7 Mton/year. The provided estimations for2016 and 2017 highlight an increasing demand trend. According to this survey, the national
production capacity was able to satisfy such RPF demand by 70–75 since 2013 and is supported
by a recent increase of the number of RPF-facilities.
RPF is intended mainly as substitute fuel due to its properties (e.g. NCV > 25 MJ/kg) and its
national main users are the Japanese paper and steel industries, followed by cement kilns [37].
The Japan Iron and Steel Federation [38] estimated a consumption of plastics wastes (notspecifically identified as RPF) and other wastes such as waste tires of about 450,000 tons in 2016,that has remained substantially unchanged since 2005. No data were found on the use of RPF in
the paper industry. About the Japanese cement industry, statistics published in the website of theJapan Cement Association [39] show a low and yearly decreasing consumption of RPF and RDF
from about 50,000-55,000 ton/y (2010–2014) to 35,000-37,000 ton/y (2015–2016), that
corresponds to only a 1.2–1.3 wt.% of the total yearly consumption of substitute fuels.

23

Figure 11. Trend of annual demand (green) and production (red) of RPF in Japan; the light green(demand) and the yellow bars (production) for the 2017 and 2018 years correspond to a partial yearly
estimation [ 36].

In Japan, the RPF market is supported by dedicated national standards that are well recognized
and applied by all the national operators, of which the JIS Z 7311:2010 [34] provides criteria forfuel classification and specification (Table 14). More qualitative “classes” of RPF are defined, of
which one (RPF-coke) identifies a high quality solid recovered fuel with a calorific value close tothat of coal.
Table 14. Classification system and fuel quality requirements set in the Japanese standard JIS Z 7311
for waste derived fuels named RPF (Refuse derived paper and plastics densified fuel) and RPF-coke (RPFwith coke-level gross calorific value). (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Keyparameter

Value

Value

Value

(mean)
RPFcokemean)
RPF(mean)
RPF

Value
(mean
)
RPF

Unit

class A

class B

NCV

≥33

≥25

≥25

≥25

MJ/kg, ar

Moisture

≤3

≤5

≤5

≤5

%, ar

Ash

≤5

≤10

≤10

≤10

%, d

Cl
(residual)

≤0.6

≤0.3

>0.3 ≤0.6>0.6 ≤2.0%, ar

Boundary(End-uses)

class
C
Coal cocombustion(cement kiln,
power plants)
Incineration
Co-incineration

The following Table 15 summarize the results of a statistical analysis applied to national series ofmeasured values for of RPFs produced in 2018 by some Japanese RPF facilities [37], that RSE [41]performed for the purposes of an ongoing ISO project [42]24Table 15. Overall outcomes expressed as: (top table) sum (n° of assays, n° of assays <Detection limit(DL)) or average (mean, min, max, median, 80th percentile) of the descriptive statistics derived
individually for the examined series of measured values; (bottom table) ranges.

Unit

N°
of
Assa
ys

N° of
Assay
s <DL

Mean

Min

Max

Media
n

80th
perc.

MJ/kg,
ar

134

0

26.96

21.76

31.46

27.65

29.59

MJ/kg,
d

134

0

27.72

22.66

32.11

28.33

30.31

Moisturecontent

%, ar

156

0

2.96

1.29

7.25

2.53

3.62

Ash content

%, d

156

0

5.04

2.26

8.06

5.24

6.58

Cl content

%, ar

156

1

0.241

0.045

0.408

0.251

0.331

Al content

mg/kg,
d

74

0

0.309

0.051

1.805

0.166

0.316

Parameter

NCV

Korea
Until 2012, Korea (Rep. of South Korea) had codified secondary fuels on the whole as solid fuels[43] that were qualitatively differentiated into RDF (refuse-derived fuel that could be pelletized ornot), RPF (analogue of the RPF produced in Japan), TDF (tire derived fuel) and WCF (wood chipfuel). In 2013 [44], the term SRF (solid recovered fuel) was introduced in Korea by the national
legislation, and two types of SRF are currently recognized: an SRF and a biomass-SRF.
Figure 13 shows regulations, relevant parameters and limit values set for SRF adopted over timein the country. Detailed data about the current yearly production of SRF in Korea as well its
national consumption and shipment were not found.

25

Figure 12. Korea regulations for solid recovered fuels [43].

The waste management policies [44,45] adopted in Korea in 2013, include a comprehensive plan
on Waste-to-Energy (main part of the produced renewable energy) and according to that, it was
expected an increase from 1.8 Mt in 2013 to 3.8 Mton in 2020 of combustible fractions (e.g.
paper, plastics, wood) of municipal/industrial wastes transformed in SRF, to be combusted orconverted to energy at boilers, and cogeneration plants. Twelve SRF-plants are reported inoperation in the country [45], almost all of them producing SRF in form of pellets (plants capacityfrom 25 tons/day to 200 tons/day). In addition, there are 4 plants under construction and 2 more
being planned.
Regarding EfW plants, 185 incinerators and 10 MSW-gasification plants (with a capacity from 10 to
150 ton/day) are mentioned to be in operation in the country [45].

Thailand
It is estimated that about 27 Mton of MSW were generated in Thailand in 2015 and 2016 [46,47].
An integrated waste management system was recently introduced in the country, with the aim ofaccelerating the material and energy recovery from MSW through source waste separation, pretreatment systems, WtE and/or composting facilities. According to the national energy Statistics
and based on data reported by Intharathirat et al. [47], the country has 4 MSW incineration plants
in operation (2 CFB, 2 moving grate plants; 1 rotary kiln plant halted operation), 5 underconstruction and additional plans for the construction of 8 more. Four of these plants (only one
under operation at the time, the rest in construction or planning) were reported as RDF processing
plant, with a treatment capacity ranging from a minimum of 250–500 ton/d to 1550–2700 ton/d,with an estimated potential consumption of RDF in incineration facilities of about 4950 ton/d. In

26

2017, there were two RDF-gasification plants [47] in operation. These plants use a CFB and a twostage gasification (i.e. updraft and ash melting) technology and together they processed 259 ton/dof RDF or 602 ton/d of MSW. Additional MSW/RDF gasification/pyrolysis facilities were declaredunder construction or planned in the country, for an estimated potential consumption of RDF
around 468 ton/d.
A total of 23 cement kilns were reported [47] under operation, under construction and planning
covering a clinker capacity of 38 Mton/y. These plants have a potential to substitute 40% of its
own energy demand by RDF. The characteristic of a suitable RDF for being used in the cementkilns in Thailand [47] needs at least 18.8 MJ/kg of calorific value, a moisture content < 30 %, anda chlorine and sulphur content <1 %.
Thailand has a potential yearly production for around 2.46 Mt of RDF [47]. A typical RDF would
consist of 40 % plastic, 30 %-yard waste, 10 % food waste, less than 10 % paper and around 10% of non-combustible materials, with an NVC value of about 19.6 MJ/kg and a moisture content of
12%. Three national cement companies [47] have invested in MSW sorting plants with the aim of
producing a suitable RDF: six “dedicated” sorting plants are reported already under operation withan estimated capacity of handling more than 350,000 ton/y of RDF, two are under construction orplanned for a potential whole production of RDF within this industrial sector of 1.5 Mton/y.
In 2016, the Thailand’s WtE system [48] consisted of 8 RDF facilities, 7 MSW/RDF incineration
plants and 5 RDF gasification plants. Data on fuel substitution in the Thailand cement industry [46]depict in the same year a consumption of 94 Mton (ktoe 43.28) of RDF and of 32 Mton (ktoe
25.15) of used tires at 2016.
A classification of waste fuels according to the American Standards for Testing of Materials (ASTM)
is considered as main reference in the country [47]. It identifies seven types of RDF based on presorted MSW (Figure 15).
Table 16. Thailand regulations for SRF/RDF [49].

RDF-1

Waste used as fuel in as-discarded form

RDF-2

Waste processed to coarse particle size, with or without ferrous metal
separation

RDF-3

Shredded fuel derived from MSW that has been processed to remove
metals, glass and other inorganic materials (95% wt., passes 50–mm2
mesh)

RDF-4

Combustible waste processed into powder form (95 %wt., passes 50–
mm 10 mesh)

RDF-5

Combustible waste densified (compressed) into a form of pellets, slugs,
briquettes, or briquettes (d-RDF)

RDF-6

Combustible waste processed into liquid fuelRDF-7

Combustible waste processed into liquid, gaseous fuelThe secondary fuel RDF-5 (Table 16) is considered to be particularly attractive in comparison to
the combustion of the MWS itself. The RDF-5 is a densified combustible waste (mainly produced inform of pellet), derived from densified plastic waste (i.e. quite similar to the Japan RPF) [49]. It
can be combusted in different existing boilers such as fluidized bed combustors, gasifiers, cement
and brick kilns and it is easily transported or stored It contains a lower percentage of nonburnable residuals (e.g. metals and glass), a higher heat content per unit weight than the
unprocessed solid waste. When the RDF-5 is burnt in a dedicated boiler, it can offer up to 8–10 %greater thermal efficiency compared to untreated waste (no considerations taken to the energy
demand to generate the RDF-5 fuel though).

27

The feasibility to produce an RDF-5 from MSW plastic wastes mixed with crude oil sludge frompetroleum wastes have been tested in the country [49].
The RDFs produced from used and unused plastic wastes have been tested on pilot-scale
downdraft fixed bed gasification system [50]; while an RDF made from MSW of reclamations ofdumpsites and with high content of combustible wastes, low moisture content, and fewer
biodegradable fractions was tested on low pilot-scale downdraft gasifiers [51].

India
In India, the term RDF is used to identify a waste fuel that can be used for co-processing invarious industries. According to the national legislation, an RDF is a fuel derived from solid
combustible waste fraction such as plastic, wood, pulp or organic waste, other than chlorinatedmaterials. It is usually in the form of pellets or fluff produced by drying, shredding, dehydrating
and compacting of solid waste. The term SCF (Segregated Combustible Fraction) is also used inIndia to identify MSW non-recyclable fractions containing plastics and other combustible materials
that are not biodegradable and release toxic gases when they are burnt or dumped in the dump
yards/landfills. These fractions can be processed in WtE plants or used in pre-processing facilities
to produce an RDF. Unfortunately, no data has been found on current national production of either
RDF or SCF.
Quality requirements (Table 17) for RDF when utilized in the cement industry (pre-calciner/kiln)
have been defined in a Guideline of the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering
Organization [61].
More recently, classification rules and specification requirements (Table 18) for the cement
industry sector have been proposed by an Expert Committee appointed by the national Ministry of
Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) [59] and confirmed by the Cement Manufacturing Association;
and are reported to be well accepted by other stakeholders for the use of both SCF and RDF in
waste-to-energy plants.
Other than the use as supplementary fuel in thermal power stations and incineration plants, theGuideline highlights the cement industry as the most suitable industry to adopt RDF as
substitutive fuel. On the other hand, RDF is considered an unsuitable fuel for the thermal and Iron
& Steel industry and the brick kilns, due to different constraints that might have a negative impact
on the production process, the product quality and the environment.
Table 17. Quality requirements (mean) for RDF utilised in the cement industry (pre-calciner/kiln) [59].

Key

RDF -

parametrs

Desiderable
values

Unit

NCV

>3000

kcal/kg

Moisture

<20

%

Cl

<0,7

%

S

<2

%

Particle Size<120 - <70mmmm

Boundary(End-uses)

Coal cocombustion(cementkiln)

28

Table 18. Classification criteria and limit values (mean) for waste fuels utilised in cement kilns proposed(2018) in India by the Expert Committee appointed by the national Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs(MoHUA) [59].

Keyparameters

SCF
Limit
value

RDF
Grade
III
Limit
value

RDF
Grade II
Limit
value

RDF
Grade I
Limit
value

NCV

>1500

>3000

>3750

>4500

kcal/kg

Ash

<20

<15

<10

<10

%

Moisture

<35

<20

<15

<10

%

Cl

<1.0

<1.0

<0,7

<0,5

%

Particle
size

<1,5

<50, if ILC plant (a)<20, if SLC plants (b)UnitBoundary(End-uses)

Coal cocombustion(cement kiln)

mm(a) ILC: In Line Calciner(b) SLC: Separate Line Calciner

After China, India is one of the largest cement consumers in the world with a total 163 operatingkilns in 2017 [62] In 2017, India accounted for 9,5% of the total cement world consumption [63]Despite this fact, the current exploitation of alternative fuels in the cement industry measured in a
Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) is still quite low, with an increase from a 0,6% in 2010) to a 3%
in 2017, of which 24% was biomass [64].
RDF from MSW is considered one of the most promising alternative fuels (other utilised substituteare used tires, industrial plastic wastes, hazardous wastes, dried sewage sludge, slaughterhousewaste and biomass [65, 66]). There is an estimated potential availability of about 1.37 Mton/y of
MSW-RDF for co-processing. Some of the challenges in the exploitation of RDF in India are:i.

technical barriers such as poor quality of MSW: high moisture, chlorine a heavy metals
content of RDF, customization of MSW treatment plants to a cement grade RDF;

ii.

financial barriers such as high investment costs for pre-processing plants or high costs foriii.

policy and regulatory barriers on the matter of MSW conversion to RDF and RDF co-

MSW collection and transportation;
processing in cement kilns are still being elaborated. If we look at data on the amount ofwastes utilized in cement industries in India during 2016, RDF seems to have a negligible
impact, with only 848 ton/y treated in 1 cement kiln.

China
China, with an increment of 33.8% of the MSW production over the last 10 years, reaching morethan 203 Mton/y in 2016, has recently made a political choice towards a significant increase of its
daily disposal capacity through incineration [67, 60]. Incineration is expected to increase fromabout 235,000 ton/d in 2015 to about 591,000 ton/d in 2020, it means an increase of its weight in
the national MSW waste management from 31% in 2015 to 54% in 2020. It also means anincreased number of incineration plants, already changed form 249 plants in 2016 to 303 in 2017.
Figure 14 describes the planned evolution (2015) in the different provinces of China. The grate
furnace technology prevails in China (it used in 202 of the 303 MSW incineration power generation
plants under operation in 2017), however a quick development of the circulating fluidized bed(CFB) technology is now promoted [67] as well as a larger exploitation of the source (MSW)29

separation processes and the use of SRF. The matter of SRF is regulated in the country by national
standards [60] widely recognized, accepted and used by stakeholders in China even though manyindustrial and local standards are available as well.
China remains the largest cement consumer in the world, in 2017 covering the 59,1% of the total
world consumption [63] and leading the ranking of the top ten cement producing countries with a
total of 804 operating kilns in 2017[62]. No detailed data on the reached TSR were found for the
cement industry in China, even if some projects on municipal waste and sludge co-processing in
cement kilns ongoing in the last seven years are reported [69]. On the whole, China and India
seem to remain below the 6% of thermal substitution rate reached in cement sector at global level[70] in 2016, and very far from that of the EU-28 zone as later showed.

Figure 13. Situation and trend of WtE incineration plants in the provinces of China in 2015 [67].

30Trade within Asia
As the following Figure 15 shows, different South-East Asian countries are involved intransboundary shipments of secondary fuels (i.e. SRF, RDF), with India and China the prevailingfinal customers [35].

Figure 14. Transboundary shipments of RDF (red line) and SRF (blue line) in Asia [35].

Countries recently experiencing a demographic and/or an economic expansion, such as China andIndia, look with an increasing interest to secondary fuels as a reasonable way to tackle themanagement of the very large volumes of urban wastes yearly produced [52,53,54,55,56,57].
Both countries have recently revised their legislations on waste management. Furthermore, China
has also recently introduced import bans for specific waste streams such as low-quality plastics
and paper. The Annex 1 provides some discussions on their effects, mainly focused on the exportof plastic wastes intended to be submitted to recycling in the recipient countries. China and India
are also moving towards a development of own technical guidelines/standards for the use of
secondary fuels in different industrial sectors (India) [61, 59 ] or the alignment of the existingones (as it is the case of China) with those internationally addressed [60].

31

AFRICA
Egypt
Based on the national data [71], the MSW sorting and composting sector in Egypt is based on a
total of 64 plants, of which 46 were under operation in 2015, with a whole design treatment
capacity around 3.2 Mton/y. During 2015 the plants under operation treated about 2.2 Mton of
MSW, that means 18% of the total amount of MSW yearly collected in the country, with anaverage efficiency of the system around 70% of the design capacity.
It was estimated [71] that Delta, Greater Cairo and Alexandria areas (they account for the 83% of
the total MSW produced in the) have a potential capacity to produce in the range of 1.7 to 4.2
Mton/y of RDF. In 2015, the national production of RDF was around 223,000 tons and cementkilns seem to be the largest end-user. The RDF is mainly produced by third party producers that
conduct pre-processing of MSW coming mainly from the area near Cairo. There is only one cement
facility that pre-process urban wastes to produce RDF through a partnership with a local waste
management company [71]. A calorific value of the produced RDF falling in the range of 11.7-16.7
MJ/ton is reported [71].
According to the results of a survey carried out by the Egyptian cement industry [71], 8 out of the
14 cement producers interviewed, co-processed about 388,000 tons of agriculture waste, 223,000
tons of RDF and 32,000 tons of shredded scrap tires in 2014. In the same year, an averagethermal substitution rate (TSR) of 6.4% was achieved by the national cement sector, with amaximum rate of 13% in two cement kilns. It was estimated [71] that a 20% TSR could
reasonably be achieved by 2025 in Egypt, based on the availability of substitute fuels in the
country and the expected capability of the waste management system to support the productionof RDF. To reach such target, the estimated needs were for 1.36 Mtons of RDF, 1.51 Mtons ofagricultural waste, 0.1 Mtons of tire derived fuels and of 0.44 Mtons of dried sewage sludges, asubstitutive fuel not utilised at least until 2015.

32

EUROPE
A view of the SRF/RDF market on a national basis is described below, based on the data that waspossible to collect from literature and the responses provided by Expert Members to a dedicatedsurvey carried out on the matter by the ISO/TC 300/WG2 in 2017. Therefore, the provided
description of the production and use of SRF/RDF, certainly, does not cover all countries
uniformly, and not always provides equally and exhaustive data. However, it can be useful for aknowledge of the state of the art and the perspectives of the individual markets.
Furthermore an overview of the European market, as well as identified barriers are presented.

Spain
In 2015, 31 mechanical waste treatment plants were reported under operation in Spain [89] with awhole treatment capacity of about 4.2 Mton/y. However, no data is available regarding SRF/RDF.
About 2.5 Mton of MSW (no data provided about the share of SRF/RDF) were treated in 10
incineration facilities under operation that have in total a capacity of about 2.6 Mton/y.
About the national cement industry, 30 cement kilns under operation accounting them for an
overall use of substitutive fuels of about 0.8 Mton of which 0.5 Mton were reported as “otherwastes” and 0.3 Mton as a mix of European waste list codes (EWC) that includes both the 191210
and the 191212 ones (individual share were not provided).

Germany
Germany produced about 3 Mton of SRF of which 0.5 Mton were under the brand mark SBS withcertified RAL quality, and consumed about 2.2 Mton of SRF in cement kilns which corresponds to
67% of 3.3 Mton utilised substitutive fuels, and 0.8 Mton in the national system of coal (lignite
and hard coal) power plants during 2016 [90][]. The whole national production of RDF was around
8.7 Mton [91] (4.1 Mton from MSW and 4.6 Mton from industrial/commercial waste streams) ofwhich SRF accounted for 2–3 Mton. SRF was mainly consumed as fuel substitute in co-incineration
plants. In 2015, RDF consumption was 1.3 Mton in incineration plants and 4.7 Mton in dedicatedindustrial facilities (heat generation), so accounting for a whole amount of about 9 Mton of RDF(regulated and not) in the country.
An SRF is assumed in Germany to be a specially prepared fuel made of production-specific ormunicipal waste streams that have been treated adequately for being used mainly in coincineration plants. Solid recovered fuels that comply with a defined standardised quality - definedby the German RAL-GZ 724 [92] (Table 19) - are now protected in Germany by brand names(BPGTM; SBSTM) [93–96].

33

Table 19. Germany. Fuel quality requirements according to the national standard RAL-GZ 724. (d: drybasis).

Key
parameter
As
Cd
Co
Cr
Hg
Mn
Ni
Pb
Sb
Sn
Tl
V

Limit Value(median)Limit value(80th
percentile)

Unit

0.31
0.25
0.38
7.8
0.038
16
5
12
3.1
1.9
0.063
0.63

0.81
0.56
0.75
16
0.075
31
10
25
7.5
4.4
0.13
1.6

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, dBoundary(End-uses)

Coincineration

BGS 2 Gütegemeinschaft Sekundärbrennstoffe und Recyclingholz e. V.,
Güte- und Prüfbestimmungen für Sekundärbrennstoffe [Quality andmonitoring rules for SRF], RAL-GZ 724, Sankt Augustin, Januar 2013

The BPGTM label identifies an SRF produced only from source sorted industrial and commercial
waste. Three qualitative categories of BPGTM are defined: BPG 1TM (power plants), BPG 2TM (cementkilns) and BPG 3TM (lime kilns). The SBSTM label identifies an SRF produced from municipal waste
streams and from construction and demolition wastes. Two qualitative categories of SBSTM aredefined: SBS 1TM (lignite power plants) and SBS 2TM (coal power plants and cement kilns). Table 20
shows the quality requirements set in Germany for these recovered fuels.

34

Table 20. Germany: quality requirements for SRFs produced according to the RAL GZ 724 receiving thetrademarks BPGTM and SBSTM [93, 94]. (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Keyparameter

Unit

BPGTM 1value

BPGTM2Value

BPGTM 3Value

SBSTM 1value

SBSTM 2
value

NCV
Moisture
Ash
Cl
F
S
As
Be
Cd
Co
Cr
Cu
Hg
Mn
Ni
Pb
Sb
Se
Sn
Te
Tl
V
Origin

MJ/kg,ar%, ar
mg/kg d
%, dm
%, dm
%, dm
mg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,dmg/kg,d

16-20
<35
<20
<1.0
<0.05
<0.2
<10
<1.0
<9
<12
<120
<400
<0,5
<100
<50
<100
<120
<4
<70
<4
<1
<15
residues
from paper
production
rejects,
punching,
photography paper,blocks wetstrength
paper,
cellulose
cloths, etc..

20-24
<20
<15
<1.0
<0.05
<0.3
<10
<1.0
<9
<12
<120
<400
<0,5
<100
<50
<100
<120
<4
<70
<4
<1
<15
paper
wastes as
BPG® 1,
plastics(resins,polyacrylic,polyester,polyolefin,
PUR...),
fibre
fabrics,
carpets,etc..
cement
kiln

23-27
<12,5
<9
<1.0
<0.05
<0.3
<10
<1.0
<9
<12
<120
<400
<0,5
<100
<50
<100
<120
<4
<70
<4
<1
<15
low ashplastics(resins,polyacrylic,polyester,polyolefin,
PUR...),

13-18
<35
<20
<0.7
<0.05
<0.5
<10
<1.0
<9
<12
<250
<1000
<1,0

18-23
<20
<15
<1.0
<0.05
<0.8
<10
<1.0
<9
<12
<250
<1000
<1,0

<400
<160
<400
<120

<400
<160
<400
<120

<5
<70

<5
<70

<5
<1

<5
<1

<25
differenthighcalorific
fractionsfrom MSW
demolition
wastes<25
as SBSTM
1

lime
kiln

coal
(lignite)power
plantscoal (hard
coal)
power
plantscementkilns

Boundary (end-use)

power
plantsBPGTM (Brennstoff aus produktionsspezifischen Gewerbeabfällen)
SBSTM (Substitutbrennstoff)

35

Austria
Austria [97] reported a production of about 2.8 Mton of SRF of which about 1.0 Mton were only
from MSW in 2015 and a production of 0.18 Mton of SRF-EoW (fuel product) in 2016.
53 industrial power plants were under operation in the country in 2015 with a total capacity of
about 1.0 Mton of waste treated which includes waste wood (about 0.4 Mton), residues from thepulp and paper industry (about 0.4 Mton), plastic wastes (about 0.1 Mton) and to a lower extent,
textiles, sewage sludge and other wastes. The 8 cement kilns under operation during 2015 and2016 consumed 0.5 Mton/y of substitutive fuels; plastics wastes being the the main component of
the mix of substitutive fuels contributing with 0.30 Mton in both the year;, followed by sewage
sludge, waste wood, animal meal agricultural residues, used tires , paper fibers used tires andwaste oil (all more or less >0.1 Mton).No details are provided by the data source about theconsumption SRF/RDF. Other source of information [91] quantify a whole national RDF
consumption of about 1.3 Mton at 2015, of which 0.27 Mton were incinerated, 0.71 Mton wereused in incineration/co-incineration in dedicated industrial facilities and, 0.33 Mton in cementkilns.
About the use of SRF in cement kilns, an increasing role of secondary fuels is reported [80] (Figure16) with a country consumption that involves two types of recovered fuels: the so-called "medium
quality SRF" (e.g. with 12 ≤ NCV ≤ 18 MJ/kg d, used for energy recovery in secondary firing
systems of cement kiln and/or in special pre-combustion chambers like Hotdisc) and a "premium
quality SRF (e.g.: 18 ≤ NCV ≤ 25 MJ/kg d, used for energy recovery in primary firing system of
cement kiln.

Figure 15. Alternative fuels consumption in Austria between 1998-2015 in cement kilns expressed asthermal energy input [80].

The RDF is legally defined in the Austrian Waste Incineration Ordinance [98] as a fuel waste that:(i) “is used entirely or to a relevant extent for the purpose of energy generation and which
satisfies the quality criteria laid down in this ordinance”; (ii) “is produced through an adequate andextended pre-treatment of non-hazardous wastes streams such as sewage sludge, waste wood,36

high-calorific fractions, from mechanical-physical (MP) or mechanical-biological (MB) treatment
plants, calorific fractions of household and commercial wastes, shredder light fractions (i.e. fromold vehicles and waste electric and electronic equipment), scrap tires, waste oil, used solvents andanimal fat and bone meal .., carried out in facilities that apply a well-defined quality assurance
system”; (iii) “can be used in co-incineration plants and is traded and shipped under the European
waste list code (EWC) 191212”.
The term SRF refers in Austria to a subset of RDF that: (i) ”is produced from selected or mixed
non-hazardous wastes according to well defined pre-treating process (e.g. multistage shredding,classifying, separation of Fe- and non-Fe-metals, exclusion of heavyweight inert materials, sortingout of unwanted materials like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or of recycling materials like PET)”; (ii)“comply with quality requirements such as production, classification and specification set in theEuropean standard EN-15539 and is traded, shipped and used under the EWC code 191210”.
The above-mentioned Austrian Ordinance legally sets quality requirements that apply to different
uses of a generic solid waste fuel or an SRF. The mandatory limits values set are reported in thefollowing Table 21–Table 23. An end-of-waste is now admitted in Austria and regulated by thesame legal act.
Table 21. End-use: Coal co-combustion in cement kiln. Key properties and mandatory limit values for
waste fuels utilised in set in the Austrian legislation [98]. (d: dry basis).

Keyparameter
Sb

As

Pb

Cd a

Cr

Co

Ni

Hg

Statistic

Limit value

Unit

Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median
80th
Perc.

7
10

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d2
3

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d

20
36

mg/MJ, d

0,23
0,46

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d25
37

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d

1,52,7

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d

1018

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d

0,075
0,15

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d

mg/MJ, d

End use boundaries

According to the Austrian legal act(annex 8, (1.1)), the limit values
apply to those part of cement
production plants in which cementclinker are burned (furnace system inaccordance with art. 2(1) (c) of the
Cement Regulation (ZemetV) 2007,
BGBI II n° 60/2007, consisting ofrotary furnace, the cyclone or gratepreheater and the calciner

For quality-assured waste fuels (code number 91108 in accordance with List of Waste Ordinance,
BGB1 n. 570/2003, in the applicable version) a limit value of 0,45 mg/MJ applies to the medianand a limit value of 0,7 mg/MJ applies to the 80th percentile.
a37

Table 22. End use: Coal co-combustion in power plant. Key properties and mandatory limit values for
waste fuels set in the Austrian legislation [98].. (d: dry basis).

Keyparameter
Sb

As

Pb

Cd

Cr

Co

Ni

Hg

Statistic

Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.
Median80th
Perc.

Limit value(Proportionof thermal
output≤10%)

Limit value(Proportionof thermal
output
≤15%)

Unit

7

7

mg/MJ, d

1010

mg/MJ, d22

mg/MJ, d

33

mg/MJ, d

23

15

mg/MJ, d

41

27

mg/MJ, d

0,27

0,17

mg/MJ, d

0,54

0,34

mg/MJ, d

31

19

mg/MJ, d

4628

mg/MJ, d

1,40,9

mg/MJ, d2,51,6

mg/MJ, d

117

mg/MJ, d

1912

mg/MJ, d

0,075

0,075

mg/MJ, d

0,15

0,15

mg/MJ, d

End use boundaries

According to theAustrian legal act(annex 8, (1.2)), thelimit values apply toboilers employing
predominantly hardcoal or lignite andserving the generationof electricity and district
heat. Th e proportion of
the thermal output fromthe incineration ofwaste relative to thetotal thermal output islimited to a maximumof 15%

Table 23. End use: co-incineration. Key properties and mandatory limit values for waste fuels set in theAustrian legislation [98]. (d: dry basis).

Keyparameter
Sb
As
Pb
Cd
Cr
Co
Ni
Hg

Statistic

Limit
value

Unit

Median80th Perc.
Median80th Perc.
Median80th Perc.
Median80th Perc.
Median80th Perc.
Median80th Perc.
Median80th Perc.
Median80th Perc.

7
10
1
1,5
15
27
0,17
0,34
19
28
0,9
1,6
7
12
0,075
0,15

mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d38

Ireland and United Kingdom
Despite that a detailed and updated figure of the domestic production and use of RDF/SRF in the
Irish Republic and the United Kingdom was not achievable, we considered it relevant to provide
here some elements on how recovered fuels are identified in these countries which are largely
involved in the transboundary shipment within Europe, as previously mentioned.
The Environmental Protection Agency of the Irish Republic established [81] that municipal waste(EWC code 200301) can became a combustible waste (i.e. generically a refuse derived fuel, RDF)
if submitted to a “treatment process that substantially alters the properties of the waste andaccording to the National Transfrontier Shipment Office (TFSO)”.
Such refuse derived fuel will receive: (i) the EWL code 191212 if it is a mechanically treatedresidual waste with a NCV falling in the range 9–12 MJ/kg and higher than the waste stream it isproduced from: It main use (as well as of the municipal waste stream itself) can be as fuel inincineration and co-incineration plants for electricity and heat production; (ii) the EWL code
191210 if it is a fuel with a higher NVC (13–20 MJ/kg) that complies with quality requirements
such as Cl, Hg, Cd, Tl, resulting in suitable as substitutive fuel (e.g. in the cement industry). In
fact, this last one is considered as a subset of refuse derived fuels, named solid recovered fuel(SRF).
In the UK, the Waste and Resource Action Program (WRAP) provided a guideline [99] for theclassification and specification of secondary fuels 2, generically named as waste derived fuel(WDF).
This guideline sets that a WDF is: (i) a refuse derived fuel (RDF) if it is an unspecified 3 waste fuelobtained by submitting the waste streams to a basic processing that enhances the calorific value.
The use of the term unspecified here is not referring to quality requirements set in standards; (ii)a solid recovered fuel (SRF) if the produced waste fuel reaches a high market value, being able tosatisfy tighter quality specifications.
The UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) [100] defines RDF as a fuelthat” consists of residual waste that is subject to a contract with an end-user for use as a fuel inan energy from waste facility. The contract must include the end-user’s technical specifications
relating as a minimum to the calorific value, the moisture content, the form and quantity of the
RDF”. This is a definition clearly centered on fuel quality, but whose statement seems be primarily
based on the end-user requirements.

FranceCombustibles solides de recuperation (CSR) is the French equivalent to the English meaning for
SRF. As the further Table 36 and Figure 20 and Figure 21 show, the domestic production andconsumption of CSR seems to be low now in France.
In 2015, between 230–800 kton of CSR were produced, approximately 275 kton of themconsumed by cement kilns which are the main national consumers [91] while a negligible
consumption in dedicated EfW facilities is reported. In France, the use of CSR from MSW is not
eligible for subsidies within the framework of the Energy CSR call for projects now activated (in2
The mentioned WRAP Guidelines is intended for use in EfW plants with a treatment capacity < 100000 ton/y, with the aim to provide anapproach to waste classification and specification more “sustainable” for these plants than that required by the European standard EN 15539

Not defined by the source, a meaning of the term unspecified as not responding to quality requirements set in standards, as well as in a
private commitment among producer and end-user, can be reasonably assumed

339

the country supported by ADEME 4), so that the sector mainly seems to move to produce CSR
from industrial and commercial waste streams.
With the legislative acts recently approved [101–103] France now seems to move towards a
promotion (production and domestic use) of secondary waste fuels and, in particular, of thosenamed in the country CSR. The term CSR, is now legally defined [103] as a non-hazardous solid
waste fuel that consists of waste which have been pre-treated to extract from the incoming waste
stream those fractions recoverable in form of material, under the prevailing technical andeconomic conditions: it is prepared for use in plants falling within the heading 2971 of the French
list of facilities classified for the purpose of environmental protection. CSR also meet therequirements set in the French regulatory framework in terms of characterization and thresholds
values (Table 24), quality control and obligation to respect the waste hierarchy. A difference

seems therefore to be introduced in France in respect to a generic RDF (a not regulated RDF) andto a regulated RDF (SRF) as according to the European standard EN 15539.
Table 24. Mandatory limit values and boundary condition of end-use for CSR as waste set in the Frenchnational legislation [103]. (a: as received; d: dry basis; nd: non-detected).

Waste

CSR

Key
parameter

Statistic

Limit
value

NCV

nd

>12

Hg

nd

<3

Cl

nd

< 15000

Brnd< 15000

Ʃ Br, Cl, F,
I

nd< 20000

Unit

End use (boundaries)

MJ/kg,
ar
mg/kg,d
mg/kg,d
mg/kg,d
mg/kg,
d

Relevant WtE plants falling into theclass 2971 of the nomenclature ofplants for the protection ofenvironment, according to the Decreen. 2016-630 of May 19, 2016 =Plants producing heat or electricity
from NHW in form of CSR,
prepared in a deputy pre-treatment
facility, alone or mixed with otherfuels

A complementary classification of CSR was also proposed in France, based on results of a study[104] promoted by ADEME and performed by FEDEREC (French Association of waste recycling
companies). The aim was to integrate the European standard on SRF by means of a classification
system based on parameters assumed as relevant depending on the combustion equipment andtechnologies for pollution control chosen, especially in case of dedicated boilers. As Table 25
shows, the proposed scheme is based on seven key parameters and for each one a limit value isdefined, so to identify four “qualitative” classes of CSR (from a class A high quality CSR to a class
D low quality CSR).

4The French Environment and Energy Management Agency.

40

Table 25. Guideline for the classification and specification of the SRF named CSR in France elaborated by
FEDEREC et COMPTE-R for ADEME [93]. (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Keyparameter

CSR
Cat.
A/1
(mean)

CSR
Cat. B/2(mean)

CSR
Cat.
C/3
(mean)

CSR
Cat.
D/4
(mea
n)

NCV

>20

16 - 20

12-16

<12

MJ/kg,
ar<0.5

0.5 - 1

1-2

>2

%, d

<0.25
<0.5
<15

0.25 - 0.5
0.5 - 1.5
15 - 25

>1
>3
>35

%, d
%, d
%, d

>350

350 -500

0.5 - 1
1.5 - 325 - 35
100 350

<100

kg/m3

<30

30 - 60

60 -100>100

mm

Halogens(S Cl, Br, F)
S
N
Ash
Bulk
density
Particle
size

Unit

Boundary (End-uses)

Incineration, coincineration andcombustion plants withgrate furnace technology
Incineration, coincineration andcombustion plants withfluidized bed technology

The nomenclature criteria proposed by the Ferederec Study classifies it based on four class – A(higher quality)÷D (lower quality) - that apply to the key parameters NVC, Total Halogens, S,N) and to four class - 1(higher quality)÷4 (lower quality) - that apply to the key parameters
Ash content, bulk density and particle size

CSR is expected [84] to actively contribute to reduce the national dependence on fossil fuel for heatand electricity production and enlarge the share of renewable energy in France, as well as theplanned national reduction of landfilling. A decrease of non-hazardous waste landfilling from 21
Mtons (2010) to 11.3 Mt (2020) is expected, meaning that CSR could contribute with 2.5 Mt/year
making the energy recovery of non-recyclable waste a pillar of waste disposal in France.
The new legislation focuses also on the thermal treatment of pre-treated waste and its impact on
CSR producers and end-user plants, insofar as it defines the ICPE plants [105] allowed to prepare
CSR, defines a new ICPE category [106] of RDF combustion plants (i.e. plants relevant forenvironmental protection) that can use it as fuel and, at the same time, modifies previous
dispositions for some other categories of existing thermal and combustion plants (excluding CSR
combustion). These legislative and regulatory developments in France are a first step towards thedevelopment of a CSR-to energy sector that needs to build-up heat and electricity production
capacities based on this waste fuel, already under development and supported in particular throughthe above mentioned CSR Energy’ call for projects [84].

41ItalyIn Italy secondary waste fuels, both not regulated (RDF) and regulated (SRF: currently named in
the country CSS 5, previously CDR 6) are yearly produced in MT/MBT plants, mainly from unsorted
or pre-treated municipal wastes stream [82,109]. In 2017 [109], a total of 130 MTB/MT plants were
under operation in the country, most of them located in central and south regions, due to differences
still occurring on both the local amount of unsorted waste to manage and the availability of recipient
EfW plants (mainly MSW incinerators). RDF and SRF are produced mainly from unsorted (88% of
the total waste treated, in 2017) or pre-treated (8.5%, in 2017) municipal solid wastes [82,109]
The MSW-RDF streams that come out of MT/MBT plants include dry and bio-dried waste fractions
generally traded inside the country and shipped under the EWC code 191212. In 2017 [109], thedomestic production of dry fraction was about 4.49 Mton and that of biodried fraction 0.15 Mton.
23% of the dry fraction and the 78% of the biodried fraction was incinerated, while 1.8% of the dry
fraction was used in co-incineration plants (dedicated facilities producing heat and electricity). A
significant part is also ending up being landfilled.
In the same year, about 1.34 Mton of CSS were produced by about a third of all the 130 MT/MBT
plants under operation in the country; while in 2015 and 2016, about 1.6 Mton (2016 [110]) andof 1.5 Mton (20157) of MSW-CSS were produced. It is important to mention that a smaller

production of CSS from industrial/commercial wastes also occurs in Italy. The available data do notallow to quantify individually the CSS produced from these waste streams. Based on the lastavailable statistics on “special wastes” 8, in the year 2015 [111] 54,876 ton of such CSS has beenutilised for energy recovery in cement kiln/co-incineration plants and 85,454 ton in incineration
facilities.
CSS and other secondary fuels enter the fuel mix of MSW-incinerators. Nowadays, all the Italianfacilities generate electricity and satisfy partially also the local urban heating demand. In 2017, a
total of 38 plants under operation [109] - of which 6 of them were fluidized bed boilers which mainly
or only fed with CSS - consumed about 2.4 Mton of secondary fuels..
The last available national statistics (2015–2017) reported on the consumption of CSS combine theconsumption from MSW-incineration plants as well as for a very limited number of dedicatedindustrial plants (0.33 Mton in 2017). Therefore, a correct figure of how much CSS (or RDF) is yearly
consumed in MSW-incinerated plants cannot be provided. Previous statistical data (2010-2014) [82]estimated a yearly consumption of CDR/CSS by the MSW-incinerators between 0.9 Mton (2010:
16% of the fuel mix ) and 1.1 Mton (2014: 18% of the fuel mix); while the RDF consumption (dryfraction, mainly) was between 1,3 Mton (2010: 22 % of the fuel mix) and 2,0 Mton (2014: 32% of
the fuel mix).
CSS plays an important role in Italy as substitute fuel (coal co-combustion). The main consumer isthe national cement industry. Only in 2017 [63], about 213,000 ton of CSS were consumed bycement kilns, which is equally by mass to a 59% of the total 360,000 ton of alternative fuels utilised.
The mentioned data refers to a total of 27 full cycle monitored by The Italian Cement Technical5

CSS: combustibile solido secondario (secondary solid fuel)CDR: combustibile derivato da rifiuti (refuse derived fuel); it was differentiated in CDR-N (it means of normal quality) and CDR-Q (itmeans of high quality)

6

7
ISPRA, 2016. Annual report on municipal solid wastes. Report n. 251/2016. Eds. The Italian Institute for Environmental Protection andResearch (ISPRA), Rome, pp. 570
8The industrial/commercial wastes that fall in Chapters of the European list of waste other the Chapter 20, are commonly named in Italy“special wastes”

42and Economical Association (AITEC), equivalent to more than the 95% of all the facilities underoperation in the country. Figure 17 shows the amounts of SRF and of plastic, rubber and ELT in themix of alternative fuels over time (2010–2017).

Figure 16. Alternative fuels consumption in the Italian cement kilns: trend 2010-2017 [63]With respect to the use in cement plants, when asked on the status and perspectives of SRF market
in the country for the purposes of this Report, Mr. Daniele Gizzi (AITEC) pointed out that, in contrast
to what happens in other countries (e.g. The Netherlands), the production of SRF and othersubstitutive fuels in Italy is always linked to treatment plants external to the cement kiln.
About the future of substitutive fuels and, in particular, SRF, Mr. Gizzi reported that previsions madeby the AITEC Research Office foresee a national cement production of about 22–23 Mton/y within
2.5 years. This production corresponds to an expected consumption of substitutive fuels of 1-1,2
Mton/y of which a main contribution is expected from SRF (i.e. CSS in Italy), together with an
expected increasing contribution of sludge too.
In 2017, the average caloric substitution rate through use of SRF was 17.3%, which remains belowthat already obtained in different European countries, as well as, on average value by the EU 28
countries. When asked about a realistic potential, Mr. Gizzi answered that based on recent trends,
a 40–50% share of caloric substitution could be achieved in the Italian cement sector by 2025.
CSS is traded and shipped within the country as waste under the EWC 191210. About 131,000 ton
were exported during 2017 [109] compared to 175,767 ton in 2016 [110] and 139,062 ton in 2015[111]). No import of SRF is recorded in Italy.
The term RDF above mentioned is used to identify waste fuels (i.e. dry and bio-dried waste fractions
outcoming from MT/MBT plants and sent to EfW facilities). There waste fuels are not required tomeet standard requirements in Italy and, therefore, not specifically characterized for properties.
Only EfW plants that ask for an economic revenue for the share of renewable energy they put in thenational grid can be required to qualify these fuels, but only with respect to their biomass and energy
content.
Otherwise, CSS is legally identified in Italy [114] as a secondary solid fuel produced from waste
streams that shall respect the requirements for classification and specification set by the European
standard EN 15539. CSS is assumed in the country to be a solid recovered fuel.
43

National standards have been provided to support the application of the European standards [115]and a need for fuel quality requirements [116] (as for the characterization of CSS (and of otherwaste fuels) with respect to the biomass and the energy content [117].
Table 26. Fuel quality requirements for the SRF named CSS, in Italy, set in the national standard UNI/TS
11553 [116]. (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Keyparameter

Limit Value(statistic: median)

Unit

Cd

10

mg/kg, dTl

10

mg/kg, dAs

15

mg/kg, dCo

20

mg/kg, dCr

500

mg/kg, dCu

2000

mg/kg, dMn

600

mg/kg, dNi

200

mg/kg, dPb

600

mg/kg, dSb

150

mg/kg, dV

150

mg/kg, dLimit values for classes 1 and 2
in table 1 of EN 15539
Limit values for classes 1, 2
and 3 in table 1 of EN 15539

Hg a
Cl b
a
b

Boundary (End-uses)

incinerationcoal co-combustion (cementkiln)coal co-combustion (power
plant)
co-incineration

MJ/kg, ar%, dStatistic: median and 80th percentile. Limit values: see Table A.3.3
Statistic: mean. Limit values: see Table A.3.3

In the past, a waste fuel named CDR 9, meeting classification and specification rules set in a
dedicated national standard [118], was produced in Italy from not-hazardous waste streams andtraded under the EwL code 191210.
As reported in Table 27, two classes of CDR have been defined by UNI 9903 national standard: anaverage and a high-quality CDR. The high quality one was legally admitted in the year 2006 [119]as fuel substitute in cement kilns and thermoelectric power plants. To date, CDR is almost
completely replaced in Italy by CSS. Also, that CDR were considered in the country as a solid
recovered fuel.
Like in Austria, an end-of waste of the CSS is legally admitted and regulated for production anduse in Italy [119] .The production of such fuel seems now to start in the country with 10
authorized producers.

9

CDR: combustibile derivato da rifiuti (Refuse derived fuel)44

In our opinion, a substantial growth, at least in the short-medium term, of the domestic CSS (SRF)
is of doubtful implementation, due to different factors:
(i)
(ii)

the expected reduction over time of the amount of waste (MSW) to manage;
the expected large improvement of waste management prioritising material recovery
and recycling;(iii)

the potential effects of the implementation of legislative decisions that would translate
into a relative strengthening of the “first address way” (see Figure 2) of residual MSW
to WtE (incineration) plants, so diverting them from the pre-treatment and CSS
production;(iv)

the need of a technical improvement of the pre-treatment systems themselves (costs,
time, authorizations, social acceptability…) to produce, at larger extent, a “high quality“fuel;(v)

the doubt that a real consistent increase of the demand could derive from the recipientfacilities in all the industrial sectors involved (current national and global economic
situation; and(vi)

locally: costs, time, authorizations, social acceptability etc..

Table 27. Italy. Fuel quality requirements set in the national standard UNI 9903 for the SRFs labelled in
Italy CDR normal and CDR-Q, traded as waste.[118] (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Fuel

CDR
of normal
quality

CDR –Qof highqualityKeyparameter

Limit Value(statistic:
mean)

Unit

MoistureAsh
NCV
Cl (total)
As
Cd
Hg
Cr
Cu (soluble)MnNi
Pb (volatile)
S
MoistureAsh
NCV
Cl (total)
As
Cd
Hg
Cr
Cu (soluble)MnNi
Pb (volatile)
S

<25
<20
>15000
0.9
<9
<7
<3
<100
<300
<400
<40
<200
<0.6
<15
<15
>20000
<0.7
<5
<7
<1
<70
<50
<200
<30
<100
<0.3

%, ar
%, d
KJ/kg, ar%, ar
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d%, ar%, d
KJ/kg, ar%, ar
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d45

Boundary (End-uses)

incineration/coincineration
combustion industrial
plantscoal co-combustion(cement kiln)coal co-combustion(power plant)

Sweden
The estimated production of RDF in Sweden during 2012 was 0.4 Mton (the origin being a mix of
MSW and I/CW) [84], while the internal consumption in 2015 reached 1.8 Mton of which 1.7 Mton
were used in dedicate incineration/co-incineration facilities to supporting the urban heat demand,and 0.1 Mton in cement kilns. Based on these data, it is clear that a large part of the internal
demand is covered by imported waste fuel.

Finland
Table 28. Average values for physio-chemical characteristics of SRFs from three Finnish MT plants thattreat different types of waste streams [Data from:121-123]. (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Key parameter

Unit

SRF from
residual
MSW

SRF from
IW andCW

SRF from
C&DW

NCV
NCV
Moisture
AshC
Biomass content
Cl
F
Br
S
Na
K
Ca
Mg
P
Al
Si
Fe
Ti
Cr
Cu
Mn
Ni
Zn
Sb
As
Ba
Cd
Co
Pb
Mo
Se
Tl
Sn
V
Hg

MJ/kg, ar
MJ/kg, dwt%, arwt%, dwt, d%C
wt%, dwt%, dwt%, dwt%, dmd/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d
md/kg, d

20.2
22.4
15.0
9.8
53.0
50.8
0.6
0.01
0.004
0.2
1590
924
28925
1390
338
6262
9244
1392
1988
368
268
55
12
229
537
0.7
278
0.7
3.4
31
3.2
0.5
0.5
12
8.0
0.1

18.0
25.0
25.0
12.5
57.4
na
0,6
0.01
0.003
0.3
3458
2174
36260
1482
958
8200
18871
4841
3162
48
375
79
22
336
52
1.8
287
0.6
3.6
120
3.6
0.5
<0.5
18.8
5.3
0.1

18.0
20.0
16.5
9.0
50.0
66.7
0.4
0.004
0.003
0.3
1470
1078
17150
1274
519
4802
12152
1274
1274
35
350
68
8.0
176
84
6.6
140
4.4
2.8
42
1.5
2.7
0.5
14.7
4.0
0.2

During 2014 [84], about 0.5 Mton of RDF were produced in Finland: 0.35 Mton from MSW and 0.15

46

Mton from industrial/commercial waste streams, of which <0.25 Mton were regulated RDF (SRF).
The total RDF domestic consumption in 2015 was about 0.65 Mton, of which 0.25 Mton were usedin gasification facilities (urban heath demand), 0.30 Mton and 0.10 Mton, in incinerations andindustrial incineration/co-incineration plants (industrial heat demand), respectively.
There are several studies that provide elements on the characteristics of SRFs used in the country
over time [17–18,19, 121–123]. As an indication, the following Table 28 shows results of anassessment of physic-chemical properties of SRFs produced at MT from different waste streams(e.g. MSW, industrial and commercial waste, construction and demolition wastes).
Regarding gasification of SRF, as indicative figure of the fuel quality is here reported in Table 29.
The average values showed in the table refer to an SRF produced from a mix of MSW and otherwastes utilised in Lahtii gasification facility in Finland in 2001 [124]. That biomass gasifier, built in
1998, has been replaced in 2012 by a new combined heat and power (CHP) waste gasification
plant (Kymijärvi II) with a SRF treatment capacity of 250,000 tons/year (such SRF mainly consistsof plastic, wood and paper products unsuitable for recycling) [125].
Table 29. Main characteristics of SRF gasified in the Lathi plant in Finland [124] (data refer to year
2001). (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Key parameter
NCV
Ash
Cl
S
Na
K
Br
F
Hg
As
Cr
Cu
Ni
Pb
Zn

Unit
MJ/kg, ar
%, d
%, d
%, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, dMeasured value(average)
16,0
6,3
0,26
0,08
1190
670
<3
43
0,3
1,4
21
20
8,5
4,3
74

Portugal
In Portugal 10, statistics on municipal solid wastes for 2017 provided by the National Agency for theEnvironment (APA) [126] account for an yearly production of MWS of about 5 Mton (an averageannual increase of 2% from 2013 to 2017 is reported). The MSW management has landfills as
main final destination (32 wt.%) followed by MT/MBT (7% and 28% respectively), waste to energy(21%), material reuse and recycling (10%) and enhancement of the organic fraction (2%) bymeans the production of compost (in dedicated or MT/MBT plants).

10

data refer only to the continental Portugal47

In 2017, APA estimated that a total of 379 tons of MSW were used for the production of a secondary
fuel - named in the country as CDR 11 - in MBT plants, which was lower compared to the previous
two years (21,509 tons in 2016 and 114,566 tons in 2015 respectively) when the municipal solid
residues were treated in MT/MBT plants and in other treatment facilities named in the country”screening stations”, under operation in Portugal.
A yearly production of 1,466 ton of CDR was reported by APA which was doubled compared to 2016(749 tons), but significantly lower than that recorded in 2015 (29,476 tons). Such trend is explainedby the unavailability of EfW plants (mainly cement kilns) to receive CDR that did not comply withminimum specification requirements. In particular, the CDR from MSW produced in the country
showed a moisture content (average values 20%–45%) higher than the limit values (12%–15%)
required for co-processing the waste fuel (cement industry).
In the last available CEWEP 12 assessment of WtE plants in Europe [127], it is mentioned that there
were four incineration facilities under operation in Portugal with a total capacity of 1.2 Mton of
MSW/non-hazardous wastes. Furthermore, the CDR consumption in cement kilns (6 plants) was
reported to be about 137,000 ton [128] of which 96% CDR was not produced from urban wastes;
3.75% imported CDR and 0.22% MSW-CDR produced in the country. The transboundary shipmentof waste derived fuels (EWC 191210), mainly from UK, Spain, Italy and The Netherlands, showed a
progressive and significant increase in Portugal (+130% in 2016 with 75,909 ton imported withrespect to 2014).
The Portuguese CDR definition, first at the Order 21295/2009 13 and most recently the under revision
Strategic Plan for MSW Management [128], is in agreement with the EN 15539: CDR is a solid fuelprepared from non-hazardous waste for being used for energy recovery in incineration or coincineration in strict compliance with the law, where the word “prepared” means processed,
homogenized and improved to a quality that allows its exchange/commercialization between
producers and users. CDR is considered in the country to be a solid recovered fuel. A national
regulation of CDR was introduced in the past with the standard NP 4486:2008 [130] that defines aframework for the production, classification and quality management of refuse derived fuels, inalignment with the technical specifications of CEN/TC 343. Currently the European standard EN
15539 is recognized.

Croatia
In 2016 a total 1,679,765 tonnes MSW were generated in the country [23] and 21% MSW material
recycling was reached.
No energy recovery or incineration of MSW is applied in the country, so that most of the produced
MSW (about 79% in 2016) is landfilled without any pre-treatment [23].
Three MBT plants are reported [23] under operation in the country with a total capacity of 285,000
ton/year. The national MBT system is planned to treat mixed municipal solid waste and nonhazardous wastes from stores, industry and institutions, which in its properties and composition are
similar to household waste that has not been subjected to special procedures for material recycling(e.g. paper and glass).

11

CDR: Combustivel Derivado da Residuos

12

CEWEP: Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants

In addition to the national Strategic Plan for MSW Management (PERSU), the Order 21295, 2009 defines a national strategy for refuse
derived fules, to support the recycling/recovery policy and the diversion of waste from landfill
1348

In 2016 [23], 1,251,299 tonnes of MSW were treated in the country. Other than RDFs (Traded as
EWC 191212), MBT plants produce quality assured waste fuels named as “Croatian SRF Premium
Quality SRF” (e.g. SRF with NCV>18 MJ/kgOS 14 and particle size 95< 30–35 mm), able to meet
quality requirements established by the Austrian Premium Quality SRF. The recovered fuels
produced at MBT plants are legally not considered as a product but still as a waste and, therefore,
they are traded under the EWC 191210 (if quality assured combustible waste, SRF) or the EWC
191212 (if a not qualified RDF).
The following Table 30 provides results of an investigation on the characteristics of the premium
SRF produced by three MBT plants recently carried out during four months during 2018, according
to analytical methods of the Austrian Standards Institute [23].
Table 30. Results (average values) of the analytical characterization of SRFs produced during fourmonths of 2018 in three Croatian MBT plants [23] (ar: as received; d: dry basis).

Key parameter
NCV
NCV
Total C (TC)
Biomass content(related to TC)
Non-Biomass content(related to TC)
Fossil CO2 emission
Ash
Cl
S
Sb
As
Pb
Cd
Cr
Co
Ni
Hg

Unit

SRF
plant 1

SRF
plant 2

SRF
plants 3

MJ/kg, ar
MJ/kg, d
%, d
w%, d

16,6
20,6
49,6
34,7

14,4
18,3
46,6
52,4

23,8
28,1
62,9
20,7

w%, d

65,3

47,6

79,3

g/MJ, dw%, dg/kg, dg/kg, dmg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d
mg/MJ, d

57,5
19,4
4,8
2,6
0,9
0,1
4,4
0,026
2,6
0,3
0,8
0,012

44,4
18,6
4,9
3,0
1,2
0,1
4,6
0,014
2,1
0,3
0,8
0,014

65,0
11,0
7,4
1,3
1,5
0,1
1,2
0,009
0,7
0,1
0,3
0,09

The national cement industry is the only user of such premium SRF [23]. All the cement kilns (6plants are reported under operation in Croatia in 2016–17) are technically able to use the SRF
Premium at primary burner only (no kilns are equipped with secondary firing system yet). Apartfrom SRF, other substitutive fuels such as scraps tires or waste oil are utilised by the cement
industry. The average thermal substitution rate (TSR) below 10% was reached in 2017 [23].

14

os refers to original substance49Market and quality aspects of the SRF/RDF
A summary analysis of the European market of SRF/RDF was elaborated by the European
Recovered Fuel Organisation (ERFO) and the European Cement Association (Cembreau) [72].
SRF/RDF are produced in Europe from different waste streams such as MSW, C&IW or C&DW, andtreated in sorting (MT) and mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) plants with a reported average
yield ranging from 35% (MSW streams) to 15% (C&IW, and C&DW streams).
Cement kilns and dedicated WtE plants are highlighted as the biggest markets for SRF/RDF in
Europe accounting for about 12 Mton/y of the SRF/RDF produced, to which cements kilns
contribute for 40% (a consumption of about 5 Mton/y). At the same time, a consumption of about
1.5 Mton/y of SRF/RDF is mentioned in other EfW plants such as power plants,
gasification/pyrolysis plants, dedicated industrial combustion plants, blast furnaces or lime kilns.
Based on assumptions for yearly production and waste management of MSW, C&IW and C&DW,
ERFO and Cembreau [72] estimated there is a potential production of approximately 63 Mton/y of
SRF/RDF in Europe. Concerning the demand, other than the cement industry that remains themost relevant European market (a potential for substitution of 40% is assumed), the report [72]identified a number of industrial sectors with a higher potential for the use of SRF/RDF as fossil
fuel substitute. These sectors were:i.

the paper and the chemical industry, potential for substitution of about 5 %;ii.

power generation plants and co-combustion with biomass, with a potential for substitutionof about 2 %;iii.

district heating systems, with a potential for substitution of about 3 %.

A total potential demand of SRF/RDF around 50 Mton/y was assumed by ERFO and Cembreau,
mainly coming from the cement industry, while the above-mentioned industrial sectors cancontribute for 12 Mton/y.
In the field of standardisation of SRF, Europe has already adopted common regulations such as
the EN 15539:2011 [73] and EN 15538:2011 [74] standards as well as other related standards, ofwhich the first one defines criteria for the classification (Table 31) and specification (Table 32) of
the SRF.
Table 31. Rules for the classification of SRF according to the European standard EN 15539 [5]. (ar: asreceived; d: dry basis).

Fuel property

Unit

Class
1

Class
2

Class
3

Class
4

Class
5

StatisticalmeasureNet Calorific
Value (NCV)

MJ/kg, ar

≥25

≥20

≥15

≥10

≥3

mean

Chlorine

%, d

≤0.2

≤0.6

≤1.0

≤1.5

≤3

mean

Mercury

mg/MJ, ar

≤0.02

≤0.03

≤0.08

≤0.15

≤0.50

medianmg/MJ, ar

≤0.04

≤0.06

≤0.16

≤0.30

≤1.00

80th
percentile50

Table 32. Specification of SRF: list of fuel properties obligatory to specify according to EN 15539. [5].
(ar: as received; db: dry basis).

GeneralPhysicalChemical

Class
code
OriginParticle form and size
Ash content (%, db) b
Moisture content (%, ar) b
Net calorific value (MJ/kg, ar; MJ/kg d) b

Cl (%, d) b
Sb, As, Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Pb, Mn, Hg,
Ni, Tl, V c Ʃ metals a (mg/kg, d) c

Sum of Sb, As, Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Pb, Mn, Ni, V, according to the Industrial Emissions Directive
(IED)
.
b
As typical value of the parameter the mean value over an agreed or specified period of time,and as limit value the maximum, minimum, or the 80 percentiles, are used.
a

As typical value of the parameter the median value over an agreed ed or specified period oftime and as limit value the 80 percentile, are usedc

An assessment of the quality of the SRFs produced in Europe was performed in the past for the
purposes of the CEN TR 15508 [75] based on series of measured values collected in some
European countries (Austria, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Norway and Sweden).
Summary statistics for Hg and Cd have been derived (Table 33). A proposal of reference values forsome physico-chemical properties of the SRF, expressed as range of the median and the 80th
percentile, bas Table 34).
Table 35 summarizes the results of a statistical analysis applied to other national series ofmeasured values for SRFs (data collected from literature or provided by producers/end users),
that RSE performed for the purposes of the ongoing ISO project ISO TR 21916, alreadymentioned. The reported statistics do not account for differences in origin or end-use of theexamined SRFs.
Table 33. Summary statistics for properties (Hg and Cd content) of solid recovered fuels derived byanalysing individually some national series of measured values (origin and end use of the recovered fuelnot considered). Values are reported ad as sum/average of the descriptive statistics derived for eachnational series of data) [Data from CEN TR 15508] – na= data not available

Parameter

Unit

N° of
AssaysN° ofAssays
<DL

Mean

Min

Max

Median

80th
perc.

Hg
Cd

mg/kg dmg/kg d

2629
2489

1125
1027

0.675
2.633

na
na

5.440
10.28

0.487
2.154

0.664
3.020

51

Table 34. Reference values for physic-chemical properties of an SRF produced from municipal solid
wastes (MSW), produced from commercial wastes or produced for a specific final use in cement
outcomes of an analysis applied to measured values collected in several European countries) [75]. (ar:as received).

Statistic

SRF
Origin
from
SRF
Final
use inMSW
Commercial
wastesCement kilns

median80th
perc.
median80th
perc.
median
80th
perc.

NCV
MJ/kg ar

Cl
% ar

Hg
mg/MJ arCd + Tl
mg/MJ ar9.8-19.9

0.3-0.79

0.006-0.069

0.0050-0.311

11.4-22.2

0.43-0.88

0.009-0.079

0.084-0.380

13.0-31.0

0.04-0.60

0.004-0.019

0.008-0.060

14.0-31.6

0.07-1.00

0.005-0.064

0.008-0.129

3.2-25.5

0.07-1.7<0.02-0.406<0.12-<0.93

3.4-25.8

0.14-2.00<0.02-0.781<0.12-0.94

Table 35. Overall outcomes expressed as: (top table) sum (n° of assays, n° of assays <DL) or
average (mean, min, max, median, 80th percentile) of the descriptive statistics derived individually forthe examined series of measured values ; (bottom table) ranges for median and 80th percentile. (as: asreceived; d: dry basis).

Parameter
NCV
Moisture
Ash
Cl
Hg
Tl
As
V
Pb
Co
Cd

Unit

N°
of
AssaysN° ofAssays
<DL

Mean

Min

Max

Medi
an

80th
perc.

MJ/kg, ar
%, ar
%, d
%, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d
mg/kg, d

372
372
470
198
321
184
355
64
274
184
314

0
0
0
0
73
137
99
4
5
24
35

18.61
15.29
13.83
0.60
0.48
0.96
1.81
3.61
102.98
4.65
1.60

15.25
8.80
8.83
0.26
0.15
0.85
0.56
1.63
22.19
1.31
0.30

22.71
22.04
20.67
1.38
1.67
3.06
21.10
7.82
371.23
33.15
18.25

18.34
15.72
13.42
0.57
0.43
1.07
1.43
2.67
71.25
2.70
1.11

20.19
18.58
16.38
0.76
0.64
1.13
2.80
4.44
150.05
4.40
3.08

A common definition of solid recovered fuel (SRF) is given by the above mentioned EN
15539:2011 standard: a solid fuel prepared 15 from non-hazardous waste 16 to be utilised forenergy recovery in incineration or co-incineration plants that meets the classification andspecification requirements laid down in the standard itself. The standard does not apply to solid
biofuels and to an untreated municipal solid waste.

For the purposes of the EN 15539, the term “prepared” means: processed, homogenised and up graded to a quality so that the SRF can be
traded amongst producers and users

15

16
According to the EN 15539, the non-hazardous waste stream SRF is produced form, shall include: production specific waste, municipal solid
waste, industrial waste, commercial waste, construction and demolition waste, sewage sludge (and other wastes).

52

There is currently ongoing work within ISO on standardisation of SRF. Since the current draft is
not in a public state at the time of the release of this report a clear reference to the standard
cannot be made. However, the definitions and compliance in the existing draft is similar to the
CEN-standards.
The normative tool called List of Waste or European Waste Catalogue [76,77], provides an EU-widecommon terminology regulation for waste classification in a broad range of activities (e.g.
production, transport, trading, shipment, plant permits, waste statistics). In the Chapter 19
subchapter of the List of Waste the code EWC 191210 refers to a combustible waste, , without
any reference to a correspondence of the RDF to standardized requirements. As below discuss, theEWC 191210 is largely used also to identify SRF.
In some European countries (e.g. the United Kingdom), secondary fuels named as both SRF andRDF seem to be released by producers (stored, locally used and shipped) under such waste code[79]. However, in other countries (Italy, Germany, Austria, Republic of Ireland[20, 80–82]), theEWC 191210 is applied more strictly to SRF.
The analyses of the market carried out by ERFO and Cembreau and previously mentioned in thisreport [83], confirms that both standardised (SRF) and not standardized refuse derived fuels (RDF)
are currently produced and used in European plants. The same conclusions can be derived when
the shipment of secondary fuels within Europe is considered. A recent analysis performed by theChartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) [79], shows that the United Kingdom leads
the export of SRF/RDF (Figure 18) with around 60% of the total of 5.9 Mton of RDF exported by
European countries in 2016, while the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany lead the list ofimporting countries. However, SRF still represents a relatively small share (<7%) of the total RDF
exported by the UK. On the other hand, the RDF exported by the Republic of Ireland also includes
SRF.

Figure 17. Situation of the RDF/SRF export in Europe in 2016 (*1000 ton) [79].

A scenario analysis [79] carried out with the aim of forecasting the residual waste supply (i.e.
waste generation and waste recycling performance) and the internal demand (i.e. capacity ofoperational and planned/proposed facilities) by 2030, indicated a potential long term decrease of
the export from both the countries. For the recipient countries, CIVM inferred the net import53

(import minus export, by assuming that all the domestic EfW capacity is utilised) as depicted in
Figure 19 and evaluated that the greatest estimated capacity surplus (1.3 Mt) could occur in thenext years in the Netherlands, followed by Germany and Sweden, even if different factors (e.g.
new national policy and legislation on waste, creation of new EfW capacity, decommissioning ofexisting EfW facilities, increase in MSW recycling) can have a relevant upward or a downward
influence on the real capacity gap in these countries.

Figure 18. Net import of RDF/SRF estimated to evaluate the EfW capacity surplus in recipient countries(*1000 ton) [79].

A recent study performed by RECORD [84] provides an assessment of the amount of secondary
fuels produced and used in different countries in Europe (Table 36), evaluates the ratio between
standardised (SRF) and not standardised RDF produced per country (Figure 20) and the mainindustrial sectors where the RDF are consumed (Figure 21).
This study identified Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands as the main
producers of RDF in Europe. Non-standardized RDFs were prevalent in most of the examinedcountries, and only Germany and Italy showed a more consistent production of standardized SRFs.
The study also showed that Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden have an SRF
consumption higher than their own production. In Germany, the consumption of MSW and
RDF/SRF refers to different EfW plants. SRF/RDF are used as coal substituted in cement kilns inFrance and England, but at a relatively lower extent compared to other European countries suchas Germany, Austria, Belgium or Italy.

54

Table 36. A quantitative assessment of production and use of RDF in different European countries. The

RDF (Million ton)

FranceGermany

UK

Austria

Belgium

Italy

Finland

NorwayNetherlands

Swedenyear the data refers to differs between 2008-2016 [84].

Production

0.2

8.7

3.2

0.5

0.4

1.7

0.5

0.0

1.5

0.4

Use

0.2

9.0

0.1

1.3

0.7

1.3

0.7

0.1

3.1

1.8

Figure 19. A quantitative assessment of the amount of standardised (SRF) and not-standardised RDF
produced in different European countries in different period of time [84].

55

Figure 20. A quantitative assessment of the consumption of standardised (SRF) and not-standardised
RDF in the inside market of different European countries (MSWI: MSW incineration plants [84].

Another study [85] produced a balance of supply and demand of secondary fuels taking into
account the so called Northern Cluster (i.e. includes EU Member States which are actively involvedin a trade with others countries as well as in a national use of RDF or SRF), in order to provide anestimation of the current and future waste treatment capacity gap (see countries listed in Table
37).
The collected key data for the Northern Cluster described a treatment capacity made up of 383
dedicated EfW incineration facilities, 13 advanced conversion technology facilities, 103 waste pretreatment facilities, 73 biomass facilities, some already co-firing secondary fuels and 102 cementkilns co-processing SRF (Table 37). Considering the already under development capacity (facilities
under construction, committed results in some of the examined countries such as United Kingdom,
Irish republic or The Netherlands) and excluding that only planned, a total effective residual waste
treatment capacity of 102,2 Mton/y was estimated for the Northern Cluster (Table 38). The
residual waste generated (Mton) and effective treatment capacities (Mton/y) were compared aswell for countries falling in the Norther Cluster (Figure 22).

56

Facilities (n°)

Belgium

Czech Rep.

Denmark

FranceGermany

IrelandNetherlands

NorwayPolandSwedenUnitedKingdom

Table 37. N° of facilities in countries of the Northern Cluster in 2015 [85].

Incineration

16

5

35

97

105

3

13

22

5

35

47

Advanced conversion
technology facilities

1

MBT/MT facilities

4

IED biomass
facilities *

2

10

63

1

40

36
1

3

9

19

Cement kilns
4
6
1
33
31
3
1
2
10
3
•
facilities compliant with the IED Directive (Directive on Industrial
Emission)

8

Table 38. Estimated total effective treatment capacity for countries member of the Norther Cluster inDenmark

FranceGermany

IrelandNetherlands

NorwayPolandSwedenUnitedKingdomkton/yCzech Rep.

Total
effective
treatment
capacity

Belgium

2015 [85].

3,800

1,400

4,900

14,50037,900

1,100

8,500

2,000

2,600

8,000

19,500Figure 21. Residual waste arisings and effective treatment capacity within the Northern Cluster in Mtons(2015) [85].

57The future residual treatment capacity was modelled based on assumptions about achievablewaste growth 17 , waste recycling 18 rates and availability of facilities 19. Figure 23 indicates that apotential overcapacity could be achieved by 2026. This study also shows that some countries (i.e.
Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands) have already reached an excess of treatment
capacity (Figure 23), so that a further need to import waste fuels (RDF and SRF) might beconsidered assuming that these countries might not close down plants.

Figure 22. Modelled potential residual waste capacity gap in Northern Cluster countries (2015 to 2035)[85].

Figure 23. Modelled residual waste arisings and treatment capacity in Northern Cluster countries (2015 to2030) [85].

17

Waste growth rates: MSW 0,5%; CW; 0,5%; IW 0,0%).

18

Waste recycling rates: at 2020 of 50%, 65%, 75% and at 2030 of 65%, 75% and 80%, for MSW, CW and IW respectively.

Assumption about facilities: no facilities will close over time (other than the already confirmed); other facilities could be retrofitted or
replaced maintaining the same scale (an assumption that can results in an underestimate level of future capacity).
19

58

Barriers
When discussing barriers with Mr Cuperus, a representative of the European recovered fuelsorganisation (ERFO), the differences among the European countries on the implementation of theexisting European legislation on waste is mentioned as a clear barrier. MSW landfilling is still themost applied waste management option in many countries in Europe; and there is a large need to
implement measures able to drive more extensively waste management towards sorting/recycling.
Another barrier mentioned is the insufficient demand but also a lack of homogeneous implemented
standards (not standardised RDF are admitted and currently traded in the European market). Thisis seen as something that can affect and prevent future exploitation of the SRF market.
Furthermore, in order to allow the global SRF market to develop, the current efforts of the ISO/TC
300 for the standardisation of solid recovered fuels will be an important factor to overcome thatbarrier.
Waste and biomass co-processing in the cement industry was investigated by Ecofys [86] withrespect to drivers and barriers that affect and/or constrain its current situation and future
development, taking into account 14 European countries. Based on the opinion of local experts, astatistical analysis of data sources on waste and cement and a review of relevant literature,
limiting/driving factors that affect the current figure of fuel substitution and potentially might playa role in its future growth were evaluated on a country basis, as detailed in the 2017 case study
report. Local and global (EU-28) medium-long term outlooks (5 – 10 years) of co-processing rates
20(provisions based on the opinion of local experts) were assumed by that study Figure 25), thatstart from a current situation (reference year 2014) characterized by very large differences
between countries [86].

Figure 24. Existing (year 2014) and expected medium-long term co-processing rates in European
countries. [86].

20

Share of specific thermal energy consumption coming from alternative fuels in grey clinker making.

59

Other than the local availability of a cement industry technically ready (driver) or not (barrier) to
use waste-derived fuels or to increase their use and price and price volatility of conventional fossil
fuels (driver), the following factors are reported to be perceived as main keys [86]:•Waste management policy (and its degree of local implementation) that promotes (driver)or not (barrier) advanced waste treatment, production of high-quality pre-treated wastes,
landfilling diversion through landfill bans and taxes (driver), for this key factor. Figure 27
maps the status (year 2015) of implementation of landfill ban and taxes in the examinedcountries. Low landfill taxes and gate fees, especially where a large landfill capacity isavailable, are perceived as barriers since they can have a negative impact on the adoptionof more advanced waste treatment solutions and, consequently, on the production of preprocessed wastes and their use for co-processing. Somewhere also a low level ofpremiums for pre-processed wastes payed by cement industry is reported to be perceived
as an impacting factor (barrier).

Figure 25. Map of the weight of policy related to waste landfill in the examined European
countries (situation in the reference year 2015) [91].

•

A low or too high local bureaucracy with respect to permit issuance might be a barrier. The
incidence of this key factor in the examined countries is mapped in Figure 27: three
countries are reported to perceive this factor as a quite relevant national barrier.
Cement facilities have to obtain co-processing permits to use waste streams as a
substitute fuel. Where not allowed or where relevant delays/constraints occur in thepermitting process, an increase of the co-processing share can be significantly limited.

60

Figure 26. – Map of the perceived bureaucratic barriers impacting on plant permits in the examined
European countries (red: low level; green: good level) – Year 2014 – [88].

•The availability (driver) or lack (barrier) of high-quality waste fuels is a factor whose local
relevance for co-processing was assessed by Ecofys (Figure 28) resulting it an impacting
factor for many of the examined countries.
The cement industry has a need of stable waste streams of high quality. The Ecofys study[86, 88] highlights that such need seems not to be satisfied everywhere by the local
waste management system, due to different factors:•

infrastructural issues (underdevelopment in pre-processing facilities);•

a waste treatment system not enough incentivized to process waste streams to a“premium” (high quality) recovered fuel;•an unbalance of the local WtE system (competition for recovered fuels with otherthermal treatment plants such as power plants, incineration plants) that can also
be emphasized by further market distortions (e.g. subsidies for energy
production from renewable sources that include the biodegradable fraction ofwastes, SRF included).

Figure 27. Map of availability of high-quality waste streams for co-processing in the examined European
countries (red: low level; green: good level) – year 2014 – [88].

61•The public acceptance, for which Ecofys assessed a local relevance as barrier as showed in
Figure 29. It refers to a public disagreement (with extreme simplification, the so called
Nimby, Not in My Back Yard Syndrome), really not only with the waste co-processing in
cement kilns but, in general, to the R1 operations (energy recovery processes), that canplay a role (public pressure, more diffuse and relevant as key factor as the figure shows)in political decisions on waste management and release of plant permits.

Figure 28. Map of public acceptance level of waste co-processing in the examined European countries(red: low level; green: good level) – year 2014 - [88].

62Conclusions
GENERALTo study the market (production and end-use) of secondary fuels is a challenge. This partly
depends on the multitude of denominations of the fuels. Waste derived fuels (WDF), RDF, and SRF
are just some used internationally, when adding the national RPF, CSS, CDR, CSR it gets evenmore complicated.
The added value of SRF compared to RDF is not primarily better quality, but rather that SRF by
default (since they are produced to fulfil set standards) are better documented and the quality is
known. There might be RDF that work as well for a given application, but there are generally
larger uncertainties in the characterisation and the inter-comparability between different RDF candiffer because different methods are used for the characterisation.
Even though different countries used labelling like “high quality SRF” it is difficult to use a grade ofhigh and low quality. The quality must be known, but then the quality depends on how it
corresponds to the demands of the end client. A high NCV SRF is potentially not compatible with alarge share of biomass in the SRF since high NCV often is related to the plastic content. Generally,
though, when speaking about high quality it might be easier to refer to low levels of contaminants
like chlorine or mercury.

MAIN USE TODAY
Incineration plants with recovery of electricity and thermal energy are end user of SRF, as well as
RDF (it is mainly used in plants equipped with FBB boilers but also in plants with gratetechnology), with some European countries (e.g. Italy) now using a large share of the national
production of SRF for that purpose. At a lower extent industrial co-incineration plants now exploit
the potential of SRF to satisfy an internal heat/electricity demand or (in some European countries,
Italy for example) to benefit economically from placing electricity on the national grid. This couldchange rapidly when circumstances become beneficial (such as oil price, pricing of CO2, …). Somedevelopments are taking place in the power and district heating sectors, but the main outlets inindustries such as steel/iron, pulp/paper, glass and chemical industry are yet unexplored in mostof the countries.
Energy-intensive industrial sectors - such as cement and lime production - and coal fired power
plants can be highlighted, also in the opinion of the experts interviewed for the purposes of thisstudy, as the main expected end-users of SRF, at least in most of the European countries. Somebarriers now existing have been highlighted such as waste management policies, availability of
SRF of suitable quality (capacity of the waste treatment system to produce it; amount that can beimported), high local bureaucracy, public acceptance, other than an end-user system equippedwith technologies that allow the use of SRF, and growing over time. These barriers have beenreviewed with respect to the European cement industry but barriers like policies, fuel availabilityor public acceptance can really be extended locally to other types of end uses.
Other countries such as India and China (just to mention cases documented in the study) thathave to manage high amounts of wastes an annual basis and to satisfy their internal demand forenergy, more recently started to develop a domestic pre-treatment system of waste (MSW,
industrial wastes) to SRF and in any way became a quite consistent importer of SRF fromneighbouring producing countries.
The ongoing intensive growth of the incineration industry in China, which seems to be focused on
the use of the FBB technology, could become a large end-user of SRF; unfortunately no data was63found about the current production and use of SRF in China so that it was not possible to estimate
this impact on both the domestic production and the import of SRF.
China and India are the largest cement consumers in the world and cover a raised position in the
ranking of the top ten cement producing countries; currently they show a quite low TSR (thermal
substitution rate) but have an high potential for SRF utilization especially if some existing barriers(technological, legislative, economical,..) that could affect its real exploitation in a short/mediumterm perspectives, will be removed or reduced. Both China and India as well as other Asian
countries, are now actively working on the development of national standard and guidelines forthe production and end use of SRF.

POTENTIAL FOR THE FUTURE
The waste hierarchy clearly recognizes a role to waste-to-energy and, in particular, to waste fuels
produced through processes substantially complementary to waste recycling; it means fuels thatorigin from waste streams not more suitable for re-use, preparation for re-use or an efficientmaterial recycling. Solid recovered fuels (SRF) as here defined will need to meet that requirement
and contribute to the expected change in the waste-to-energy feedstock (improvement of therecyclability and reusability of residues such as plastics, wood, paper, and biodegradable waste)
and towards a most energy-efficient waste-to-energy system. Exactly how this role will be in thecircular economy will depend on the pre-conditions in different markets, and different solutions will
be applied in different countries/regions.
As mentioned in the previous part, large nations like China and India still have a large share of
their energy production and supply of process heat from fossil sources. They are also major
producers/consumers of cement. European countries have shown that a significant part of thefossil fuels can be substituted with secondary fuels like SRF, which also indicates a large potential
in countries like India and China.
The efforts put into international standardisation of SRF through ISO will most probably also leadto an increased trust in SRF as a secondary fuel. This in turn might lead to an increased demandin markets that are not that large today. That is also indicated by the fact that countries thattoday do not have that active markets, like Pakistan, Egypt and Canada have chosen to enter into
the standardisation work.
A new area of application for SRF/RDF is the use as feedstock for thermochemical recycling
processes. These are aimed at producing liquid fuels or base chemicals that can be used to
produce materials like plastics. Today the commercial facilities in this area are limited, but there
are some first of its kind plants up, and the interest for the technologies are steadily increasing.
With the right incentives these technologies will develop further and become an important market
for SRF/RDF.
Overall, several activities are happening on the production and use of SRF/RDF and its importancein the near to mid-term will most probably increase.

64

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Environment and Water Management and of the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Family
and Youth, on the Incineration of Waste, BGBl., last amended in BGBl. II No. 135/2013.
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(Waste and Resources Action Programme, www.wrap.org.uk), pp.37.
100.
Department for Environment, Fooof & Rural Affairs (DEFRA, UK), 20 November 2015.
Definition for Refuse-Derived Fuel.
101.
The French Environment and Energy Management Agency. French Energy Transition forGreen Growth Act (Loi sur la Transition Énergétique pour la Croissance Verte – LTECV)
established in 2015.
102.
French Décret n° 2016-630 du 19 mai 2016 modifiant la nomenclature des installationsclassées pour la protection de l'environnement.
103.
French Arrêté du 23 mai 2016 relatif à la préparation des combustibles solides derécupération en vue de leur utilisation dans des installations relevant de la rubrique 2971 dela nomenclature des installations classées pour la protection del'environnement.
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ADEME., 2015. Combustibles solides de recuperation (CSR). Caractérisation et évaluationde leurs performances en combustion. December 2015. Eds. The Environmental and Energy
Agency of France (ADEME), Angeres, pp.92.
105.
ICPE is the French acronym for facilities classified for environmental protection: it means
any facility in general operated or owned by a public or private individual or corporate entity,
involving hazards or inconvenience for the neighbourhood, health, safety, agriculture, or theprotection of nature and the environment.
106.
New ICPE category of RDF combustion plants- Rubique (category) 2971; Installation deproduction de chaleur ou d'électricité à partir de déchets non dangereux préparés sous forme
de combustibles solides de récupération dans une installation prévue à cet effet, associés ou
non à un autre combustible (Annex of the Décret n° 2016-630 du 19 mai 2016 modifiant lanomenclature des installations classées pour la protection de l'environnement).
107.
CSS: combustibile solido secondario (secondary solid fuel).
108.
CDR: combustibile derivato da rifiuti (refuse derived fuel); it was differenziated in CDR-N(it means of normal quality) and CDR-Q (it means of high quality).
109.
ISPRA, 2018. Annual report on municipal solid wastes. 2018 Edition. Report n. 297/2018.
Eds. The Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Researc (ISPRA), Rome, pp. 640(and previous editions).
110.
ISPRA, 2017. Annual report on municipal solid wastes. Report n. 272/2017. Eds. The
Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), Rome, pp. 514.
111.
ISPRA, 2016. Annual report on municipal solid wastes. Report n. 251/2016. Eds. The
Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), Rome, pp. 570.
112.
The industrial/commercial wastes that fall in Chapters of the the European list of waste
other the Chapter 20, are commonly named in Italy “special wastes”.
113.
ISPRA, 2016. Annual report on special wastes. Report n. 264/2017. Eds. The ItalianInstitute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), Rome, pp. 523.
114.
Italian legislative Decree n. 205 of December 3, 2010, on waste (art. 10).
115.
UNI TR 11581:2015. Secondary sold fuels. Guideline for the application of the standards
UNI EN 15539 and UNI EN 15538.
116.
UNI TS 11553:2014. Secondary sold fuels– Specification of CSS obtained through themechanical treatment of not-hazardous wastes.
117.
UNI TS 11597:2015. Characterization of waste and SRF regarding biomass and energy
content.
118.
UNI 9903-01:2004 Non mineral refuse derived fuels - Specifications and classification.
119.
Italian Ministerial Decree of May 2, 2006. Regulating the use, the high-quality CDR (CDRQ) in cement kilns and thermoelectrical power plants (coal co-combustion.
120.
Ministerial Decree n.22 of 14 Febbraio, 2013. Regulation of the cessation of the waste
status of certain types of secondary fuels (CSS), according to art 184-ter, com. 2 of theLegislative Decree n. 162 of 3 April 2006 and following amendments.
121.
Nasrullah M. Vianikka P., Hannula J., Hurme M., Oinas P., 2016. Elemental balance of SRF
production process: solid recovered fuels produced from municipal solid waste. Waste
Resource Management, 34(1), 2016: 38–46.
122.
Nasrullah M. Vianikka P., Hannula J., Hurme M., 2015. Elemental balance of SRF
production process: solid recovered fuels produced from commercial and industrial waste. Fuel145(2105):1-11.
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Nasrullah M. Vianikka P., Hannula J., Hurme M., Kari J,2014 b. Mass, energy and materialbalances of SRF production process. Part 2: SRF produced from construction and demolition69

waste. Waste Management, Volume 34, Issue 11, November 2014: 2163-2170.
124.
Wilen C., Salokoski P., Kurkela E., Sipila K,, 2004. Finnish expert report on best available
techniques in energy production from solid recovered fuels. Eds FINNISH ENVIRONMENTINSTITUTE. pp. 58.
125.
Ricardo AEA, 2013. Case Study 1. Lahti Gasification Facility, Finland. Eds. Ricardo AEA,
UK, pp. 7.
126.
APA, 2018. Resíduos Urbanos. Relatório Anual 2017. Eds. Agencia Portuguesa do
Ambiente, pp.51.
127.
CEWEP. Waste-to-Energy Map of the WtE Plants in Europe in 2016 available in:www.cewep.eu.
128.
PERSU 2020+, 2019. Revisau do Plano Estratégico para os Resíduos Urbanos 2020+.
Documento para discussão pública. pp. 148 (www.apambiente.pt).
129.
In addition to the national Strategic Plan for MSW Management (PERSU), the Order
21295, 2009 defines a national strategy for refuse derived fuels, to support therecycling/recovery policy and the diversion of waste from landfill.
130.
Norma Portuguesa NP 4486:2008. Combustíveis derivados de resíduos. Enquadramentopara a produção, classificação e gestão da qualidade.
131.
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in Croatia. Waste Management, vol. 8 (2018), Eds. Stephanie Thiel, Elisabeth ThoméKozmiensky, Franz Winter, Dagmar Juchelková: 315-336.
132.
PlasticEurope, 2018. The Facts 2017. An analysis of European plastics producion, demand
and waste data. Eds PlasticEurope, Association of Plastic manufactures, Brussels, Belgium,
pp.44.
133.
EU Commission Fact Sheet, 2018. Changing the way we use plastics.
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste).
134.
Geyer R., Jambweck J.R., Lavender Law K., 2017. Production, use, and fate of all plastics
ever made.
135.
EU Commission, 2018. A European strategy for plastics in a circular economy.
136.
EU COM (2018) 28. A European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy.
137.
Hestin M., Faninger T., Milios L, 2015. Increased EU Plastics Recycling Targets:
Environmental, Economic and Social Impact Assessment. Final Report, 29 May 2015.
Prepared for Plastic Recyclers Europe. Eds. Deloitte, pp.54.
138.
Ellen McArthur Foundation, 2017. The new plastic economy. Catalysing actions. Eds Ellen
McArthur Foundation, pp. 68.
139.
Brooks A.l., Wang S., Jambeck J.R., 208. The Chinese import ban and its impact on the
global plastic waste trade. Science Advances, 2018 June, 4(6), published on line (DOI:
10.1126/sciadv.aat0131).
140.
Hook L., Reed J., 2018. The global recycling crisis. Why the world’s recycling system stopped
working. FT Magazine Environment, October 25, 2018 (https://www.ft.com/trashtrade).

70Annex 1
PLASTICS AND POST-CONSUMER PLASTIC WASTESAs the brief overview of the SRF/RDF market clearly shows, plastic wastes are a relevant componentof most of the secondary fuels currently produced. Plastics are a family of organic materials (Figure30), still mainly derived from fossil feedstocks (e.g. natural gas, oil, coal) and only partially biobased, that can be transformed into new feedstocks or into energy at the end of the life cycle (Figure31), so becoming a valuable resource.

Figure 29. Composition of the plastic’s family [Figure from: Association of Plastic Manufactures, 2017].

Figure 30. Plastics: a schematic view of the full lyfe cycle.

The production of plastics has grown exponentially over time to 322 Mton in 2015 and 335 Mton in2016, worldwide. Europe, for example, contributed to such overall production with 58 Mton in 2015
and 60 Mton in 2016 (data refer to EU28 + Norway and Switzerland) [132]. China is the largest
producer (29%) of plastic materials (i.e. thermoplastics and polyurethanes), followed by Europe(19%) and NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement (18%). Plastic materials are designed
to meet the needs of different domestic, commercial and industrial applications. On the matter,71

Figure 32 provides a view of the distribution, by market segment and by polymer types, of theplastics converter demand in Europe that accounted in the year 2016 for a total of 49,9 Mton.

Figure 31. European (EU28+Norway and Switzerland) plastics converter demand by segments andpolymer types in the year 2016 [132].

Plastic is mostly used in packaging as a low-cost product. In Europe, for example, it was estimated[136] that plastic packaging cover around a 40% of the total amount of plastic materials yearly
produced, a share double than that of plastics in the consumer & household goods sector or in thebuilding and construction sector, and from 4 to 8 and 10 times that of plastic materials used in theautomotive sector, in electrical and electronic equipment and agriculture.
A consequence of the increased production and use of plastic materials was a growth over time ofplastic post-consumer wastes, whose global estimated production was in 2015 of about 300 million
ton [132], about half from packaging. European statistics for the year 2016 [134] account for 27.1
million tonnes of plastic post-consumer wastes collected and managed as showed in Figure 33. A
total share of 31% of waste recycling was reached in 2016 (Out of the recycled materials 63% wasrecycled inside EU and 37% was shipped outside EU for recycling), with the higher recycling rates
occurring in European countries which implemented landfill ban.

72

Figure 32. Total amounts of collected plastic post-consumer wastes and management pathways in
Europe (EU28 + Norway and Switzerland) in 2016 [132].

Within plastic post-consumer wastes, packaging wastes are the main component also in Europe,with (Figure 34) a total of 16.7 million tonnes of waste collected in 2016 [132] and largely managed
through energy recovery and landfill. A total recycling rate of 40.9% was achieved (19 countries
with recycling rates higher than 35%, only two countries between 50% and 52%). Based on data
published by the European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery (EPRO) [132], around 64%of the post-consumer plastic packaging waste was collected from households (recycling rate of
37.8%), and the remaining from the trade/ industry sector (recycling rate of 46.5%)

Figure 33. Total amounts of collected plastic packaging wastes and management pathways in Europe(EU28+Norway and Switzerland) in the year 2016 [132].

The EU Commission’s strategy for plastics in a circular economy [135] points out that in comparison
with other materials recoverable from wastes (paper, glass or metals), the recycling and reuse of
end-of-life plastics is still exploited at a low extent Europe, due to: a demand for recycled plastics73

that accounts for about 6% only of the whole plastics demand in Europe, low commodity prices,market uncertainties and prospects of low profitability are highlighted as main factors that haveaffected the European plastic recycling sector and held back new investments in the local recycling
capacity. Otherwise, the strategy assumes as a priority that by 2030, all plastics packaging (apriority area) placed on the EU market should be reusable or can be recycled in a cost-effective
manner.
Different issues affect plastic recycling: the quality and price of the recycled product, compared with
their unrecycled counterpart; plastic processors that require large quantities of recycled plastic; thediversity and somewhere (e.g. plastic packaging) the presence of a mix of the raw materials in theplastic waste to be treated (plastics are easily customized to each manufacturer according to thefunctional/aesthetic use of the products) can complicate/make not cost-effective the recycling
process or finally affect the value and/or the quality of the reused material. There is a generalagreement on the matter that an improvement of plastic recycling other than move through the
adoption of best practices for waste collection and sorting systems and/or a scale up to high-quality
recycling processes to exploit plastic, already starts in the product design phase [135–137, 138]. It
means a need to implement changes in the choice of materials, additives and formats. For example:•

reduce the use of Small-format plastic packaging (about 10% of the market, by weight[138]);•

innovation in material and reprocessing technology for Multi-material packaging (about•

replacement of Uncommon materials (e.g. PVC, EPS, and PS) in packaging (account for

13% of the market, by weight [138] );about 10% of the market, by weight [138]) that are technically but not economically (theirsmall volumes prevent effective economies of scale) recyclable,•

reduce Nutrient-contaminated packaging that can affect high quality recycling.

Low of capacities, technologies, profitability or financial resources for local recycling, led - in Europe
as in other countries - to a quite consistent yearly export of plastic wastes to third countries, to betreated for recycling. Broks et al. [139] showed that the export/import of plastic waste wasconsistently increased over time (figure D) and reported that in the year 2016 about half of allplastic wastes intended for recycling (14.1 MTon), was exported by 123 countries. China was themain recipient country, with 7.35 Mtons imported from 43 different countries. The top ten exporters
include in descending order (% of the total waste imported): Hong Kong (although a part of China)(24.9%), Japan (11.8%), USA (9.7%), Thailand (6.1%), Germany (5.5%), Belgium and Philippines(4.5%), Australia (4.1%), Indonesia and Canada (2.7%).
As Figure 35 highlights, in 2017 and more extensively in 2018, a ban on the import of plastic wastes
was implemented in China.
Data published by Hook and Reed in the Financial Times in 2018 [140] (Figure 36), show that when
China and Hong Kong in the first half of 2017 still received about the 60% of plastic wastes exportedby G7 countries, the export flows to these two countries fell down in 2018 to about 10%, with other
Asian countries as new main recipient. Following the China’s import ban, an general reduction inplastic waste export was recorded: on average of about -20% for the G7 countries, with -30% for
USA and Japan, -25% for Italy, -19% for Germany, -18% for Canada, -13% for France and -3% for
the UK.
It has to be noted that a similar ban was introduced in China for paper wastes. The above-mentioned
article of Hook and Reed provides an assessment of how export flows (again for G7 countries)changed from 2017 to 2018 (Figure 37). They concluded that imports towards China almost halved(it remains the main recipient country), with a reduction of the overall 2018 export from the G7
countries.

74

Figure 34. Plastic waste trade (export and import) by mass and by value time. A: Advances in
Municipal Recovery Facility (MRF) technology B. Surge in globalization; C: Implementation of
temporary Chinese import restrictions (Green Fence, 2013) D. Implementation o of the new Chinese
policy banning the import of nonindustrial plastic waste (2017) [139]Figure 35. Plastic waste flows (export and import, *1000, tonnes) in 2017 and 2018 [140].

75

Figure 36. Paper waste flows (export and import, *1000, tonnes) in 2017 and 2018 [140].

76

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