A REVIEW OF WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE EU COUNTRIES AND THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS ENERGY USE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the review of waste management in the EU countries and the study of the practices of their energy use. The amount and sources of waste generation in the EU countries and the current trends in its management are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the analysis of production and collection of organic (food) waste by the population; evaluated the top 5 best European models of their collection (open container; door-to-door collection; open container on the street, accessible only to owners; collection of household waste divided into two streams «wet/dry»; composting directly on the territory of their generation). The door-to-door model has shown the highest efficiency when implemented by the households in most European countries in most cases. Two main directions of organic waste management were analyzed: composting and anaerobic fermentation with biogas production. These directions of waste use correspond to the principles of the circular economy and help to use the available potential of waste. Anaerobic digestion of waste is preferred to the composting because it produces both energy resources (biogas, which can be purified to biomethane and also converted into electrical and thermal energy) and biofertilizers (digestate). The experience of individual European countries in the energy use of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (hereinafter referred to as MSW) is presented. It is substantiated that the use of waste of various origins (households, enterprises, municipal wastewater, etc.) for the production of biogas is actively developing in European countries; both the number of manufacturing enterprises and their production capacities are growing. A trend towards an increase in the production of biomethane – purified biogas, which has a wider application then biogas – has been noted. The production of biomethane and biogas in relation to the total gas consumption in the sixteen largest European countries is analyzed, the largest percentage of substitution as of 2021 is noted in Denmark – 5% of natural gas was replaced by biogas, 19% – by biomethane. It has been confirmed that European countries are intensifying the production of energy carriers from waste in order to reduce dependence on buying natural gas from russia. An increase in energy independence on russian energy resources is expected to accelerate as a reaction to hostilities in Ukraine.