Economic Evaluation of Emission Reductions of Methane in the Waste Secto\r in the EU

i Preface On its way to its current form this report has received significant input from a considerable number of experts. In particular, a panel of experts in Brussels discussed a draft version of the report on November 24, 1999 (see Appendix A for a list of names), and made a number of specific and more general comments and suggestions. The author would like to thank these people for their valuable inputs into this study. For this " Final Report " it was attempted to consider their suggestions wherever possible. This is a revised version of the final report that was posted to the EU website in December 2000. The revisions are to reflect updated 1990 figures from the UNFCCC for waste water treatment. The results presented in this report are consistent with the Summary report on the project. Greenhouse gases from Waste Management Activities in the European Union were in 1990 some 155Mt of CO 2 equivalent being some almost 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are coming from methane and do not include the emissions from the transportation of waste. While the methane emissions are projected to remain fairly stable with current environmental policies, the waste sector offers much low cost potential to reduce emissions. Measures to reduce methane emissions from waste can be broadly divided into three categories: • diversion of biodegradable waste away from landfill and using alternative disposal/treatment methods such as composting or incineration; • collection and combustion of landfill gas; • improved oxidation of fugitive landfill gas emissions in the landfill cap. In this study, baseline trends have been estimated assuming that waste generation per capita, the proportion of waste disposed of to landfill and the landfill gas recovery remains constant. The landfill emissions were estimated using the time dependent IPCC methodology. To provide a 'no action' baseline the effects on methane emissions of the Landfill Directive were not included. The effect of the options to reduce emissions has been calculated assuming that the measures are implement in the order waste diversion, increased landfill gas recovery and increased oxidation in the cap. For waste diversion the implementation is split into reductions required by the Landfill Directive and those required by national policy. Under the 'no action' baseline, landfill emissions in the EU rise slightly (by 2%) to 6672 kt methane (i.e. 140.1 Mt of CO 2 eq.) by 2010 due to the …