Municipal Solid Waste Management and Waste- To-Energy in the United States , China and Japan

Abstract

In this paper an overview will be given of the current waste management situation in the United States, China and Japan. Every country has its own policies and government incentives where each country has its specific mix of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) technologies. This paper will also discuss briefly a few relevant Waste-to- Energy technologies as well as WtE-economics for these different regions of the world. WtE facilities are capital intensive and depend on various external factors to be viable. There seem to be regional difference in capital costs for constructing WtE plants where Western technologies tend to be more expensive than the Chinese. This said, the variation in capital requirement for plants of the same technology and capacity can be so substantial, that it is difficult to generalise costs of specific technologies.