High-level representatives from India, Thailand and Vietnam attended a workshop on Maximum Yield Technology (MYT) in Germany on 11 – 14 September 2018.
The Nexus approach highlights the interdependencies between achieving water, energy and food security for human well-being, e.g. basic services and economic development, while ensuring ecologically sustainable use of globally essential resources. The three “supply securities” of water, energy and food depend on ecosystems and on each other. The three resources – land, water and energy – are part of this ecosystem and must be used and protected in a balanced manner. A circular economy, an alternative to a traditional linear economy (take, make, use, dispose), keeps resources in use as long as possible, extracts the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recovers and regenerates products and materials at the end of each service life.
Most cities in Asia face similar solid waste treatment problems, namely increasing amounts of waste, unsegregated waste, high organic and humidity waste content, and lack of high quality Refused Derived Fuel (RDF) to be used as a fossil fuel substitute. The workshop on Maximum Yield Technology (MYT) was therefore conducted at the Zweckverband Abfallbehandlung Kahlenberg (ZAK) MYT Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) treatment facility in Ringsheim, Germany. It answers these challenges with a specific Mechanical Biological treatment technology applicable to the Asian MSW context. Sixteen participants from the three countries from the national, state, Metropolis and city levels attended the workshop.
The workshop focused on Waste-to-Energy within the concept of the Circular Economy. It also suggested how the participating cities and countries could contribute to the goals set in the Paris Climate Agreement, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the New Urban Agenda (NUA).
The training provided the history and structure of a ZAK treatment plant using the MYT technology modules and organised site visits to the treatment facilities, the paper production plant, a plant using RDF as fuel, a technology provider and an organic waste treatment and biogas production company. It included the rules and regulations which make ZAK and MYT a successful case study in Germany. How it could be applied in the Asian context was also introduced.
This training was able to reduce the information deficit when it comes to the mechanical and biological waste treatment of mixed MSW, the recovery of valuable and recyclable material, and the production of high quality RDF (alternative fuel) and its application. Participants from all countries expressed their intention of applying the ZAK model and MYT technology.
The workshop was conducted in the framework of the GIZ “Integrated Resource Management in Asian Cities: The Urban Nexus” project financed by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and organised jointly with the Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI South Asia), ZAK (Zweckverband Abfallbehandlung Kahlenberg/Special Purpose Association Solid Waste Management Processing Kahlenberg) and EUWelle.
Maximum Yield Technology is a new, innovative process for treatment and utilisation of residual household waste. MYT® aims to extract the complete raw material and energy content of waste and to use the energy potential as recyclable sources of energy.
ZAK is a special purpose association formed in a legal communal cooperation between the counties of Emmendingen (EM) and Ortenaukreis (OG) – based in Ringsheim, Germany. It serves 583,000 residents who produce 100,000 tons of household waste per year. That household waste is delivered to ZAK by a private company. ZAK then treats the waste via recycling, maximum yield extraction of biogas, RDF, and minimum disposal. ZAK also has MYT Business Unit GmbH, which provides knowhow transfer and advancement for MYT based projects.