By Zhang Yi, Chairman of China Strategic Emerging Industry Environmental Protection Alliance
Waste sorting has become an important national policy
China initiated the experimental work of waste sorting and identified eight pilot cities in 2000. Cities of prefecture-level and above will fully start the waste sorting work, 46 key cities will basically complete the waste sorting and processing system by the end of 2020, and cities of prefecture-level and above will basically complete the waste sorting and processing system by the end of 2025. The waste sorting works in Shanghai, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Ningbo, Suzhou and Hangzhou have achieved initial results.
Waste incineration will continue its rapid development trend
At present, with the improvement of pollution emission standards, the implementation of environmental compensation measures, the comprehensive implementation of waste sorting, the continuous strengthening of supervision, the increase of high-standard waste incineration plants, and the opening of waste transportation across administrative areas, the “neighborhood avoidance” problem of waste incineration plants is expected to be relieved gradually, which might bring development opportunities to the business of third-party inspection, supervision and commissioning operations of waste incineration plants.
In addition, national policy, industry, price, finance and environmental protection policies are generally conducive to promoting and ensuring the long-term development of the waste incineration industry. It is expected that the waste incineration industry will show a trend of “three lows and four highs”, namely, lower annual average increments, lower average scale, lower emissions, higher construction standards, higher operational levels, higher power generation efficiency, and higher industry concentration.
Development opportunities for garbage landfill
Due to its strong adaptability and low operating cost, the garbage sanitary landfill will continue to be one of the main ways of garbage disposal in small and medium-sized cities, central and western regions, new urbanized areas, and urban-rural integration modes. As the final guarantee and outlet of urban garbage disposal, the garbage sanitary landfill will still occupy an important position in large and medium-sized cities. The upgrading of waste sanitary landfills will show a rapid development trend, and existing sanitary landfill sites are expected to become a hot resource in the capital market.
National policies encourage “zero landfill” of primary garbage in large cities. Raw waste that has not been classified and pretreated will be gradually restricted from entering sanitary landfills, while special landfills for wastes such as fly ash, residue and sludge will increase.
Sludge disposal might see a rapid development
China’s annual output of wet sludge in 2018 was close to 50 million tons, and it is estimated that the figure will reach 60 million tons in 2020. Given over 80% of urban sewage treatment rate, as well as sewage treatment standard upgrading and rapid promotion of sewage disinfection, four types of water and reclaimed water, etc., the current sludge disposal rate is seriously backward, with a rate of less than 35%.
The final disposal methods of sludge after dehydration mainly include high temperature composting, anaerobic digestion, sanitary landfill, dry incineration and building materials utilization. Among them, dry incineration can be either separate incineration or co-incineration. Numerous waste incineration plants, thermal power plants and cement kilns in China provide multiple ways for sludge drying and incineration.
At present, China's enterprises specializing in sludge disposal are generally small in number, small in scale, and weak in strength. The phenomenon of “paying emphasis on sewage and neglecting sludge” is attracting widespread attention, so the next few years might see the rapid development of the sludge disposal market.
Long way to go for the recycling of construction waste
In 2014, the annual production of construction waste in China has exceeded 1.5 billion tons, accounting for 30% to 40% of urban waste, and it continues to increase at a rate of 10% per year. At present, landfill disposal accounts for more than 80% of the total, with sorting scrap metal less than 5% and the production of recycled bricks at about 8%. The basic status quo is large production, low utilization rate, backward technology and serious pollution. Due to the need of sorting, crushing, mixing, curing and testing, the cost of recycled wastes such as construction waste recycled aggregates, sand powder and roadbed materials is higher than that of natural materials, and the applications of these products are also unstable due to many restrictive factors.
The main bottlenecks at this stage include difficulties in site selection, difficulties in material assurance, difficulties in waste classification, high processing costs, and low return on investment. Future developments include accelerating the construction of regulations and standard systems for the utilization of construction waste resources, supporting the pilot and promotion programs for construction waste resource utilization, and exploring various forms of market-oriented operational mechanisms and investment and financing models.
The market of hazardous waste disposal will continue to heat up
There are 46 types and 479 kinds of hazardous wastes, including waste acid, waste alkali, smelting waste and waste mineral oil produced by chemical industry and smelting industry, as well as incineration fly ash and medical waste. In 2018, the amount of hazardous waste generated in China exceeded 70 million tons, but the proportion of real centralized disposal was less than 35%. The market opportunities and challenges coexist for hazardous waste disposal. At the national level, the standardized management system for hazardous wastes such as pollution prevention planning, hazardous waste catalogues, pollution control standards and technical specifications, and centralized disposal charging systems has gradually taken shape.
The hazardous waste treatment industry has characteristics such as multiple types, large output, many small enterprises, many barriers, many gaps and many opportunities. With the increase in the supervision of environmental protection, the proportion of closure, renovation or transformation of small and medium-sized chemical plants will increase significantly. In recent years, large enterprises and large capitals have begun to intervene in the field of hazardous waste treatment. The industry may enter the stage of reshuffling and restructuring, and leading enterprises with annual processing capacities more than 1.5 million tons have been being formed.
Park-based and collaborative processing will become hot spots
The construction of solid waste industrial parks has become a hot spot in the domestic solid waste treatment industry in recent years, and there is still much room for development in the future. Solid waste treatment parks are conducive to optimizing project layout, occupying less land resources, reducing site selection pressure, and improving intensive processing capacity and management level.
For a variety of solid waste such as medical waste, sludge and garbage, a coordinated mode of multiple technologies will help to form a benign cycle and complementary relationship. The organic integration of solid waste treatment, ecological agriculture, photovoltaic power generation and other industries will become one of the important modes of park planning and construction in the future. Collaborative disposal of domestic garbage in cement kiln is receiving more and more attention from the industry. With the improvement of policy standards and the improvement of process technology, its future will be brighter.
