Wastes generated in a community can be a valuable energy and material resourc. However, past and current waste disposal and treatment practices consume energy and have led this resource to become a serious environmental burden. Fortunately, being a resource as well as a burden has generated some extremely creative and economically attractive waste-to-energy systems to utilize wastes while mitigating their environmental impact. It is hoped that this book will promote an appreciation of the environmental problems, energy demand and resources, the economics and risks involved that are essential to define the role of these systems in the future. The problems of urban air pollution, acid rain, global greenhouse effect and surface and groundwater degradation all can be tied directly or indirectly to how we produce and utilize energy and dispose of wastes. All communities have wastes, be they wastewater, municipal solid wastes, industrial or agricultural wastes, and the community must deal with them. It is possible to consolidate many of these wastes to gain real benefits in terms of the environment, economics, energy supply and conservation and materials recovery.
This book summarizes some of the results of a renewable energy programme Methane from Biomass and Wastes developed at the Gas Research Institute starting in 1981. This programme evolved into Community Based Methane Systems with the objective to augment supplies of natural gas with secure, cost-effective supplies of substitute natural gas. The Community Based Methane Systems Programme has culminated in integrated systems to treat wastes in a manner that is both economically attractive and utilizes them to the fullest extent feasible. Instead of wastes causing environmental problems and being costly to treat and dispose, they can be a resource that is converted to valuable energy and material end-products.