Page 41 - Waste-to-Energy in the Danube Strategy Region. Challenges and Prospects

The calculation may also be considered conservative due to the assumptions regarding

the circular economy targets themselves. Firstly, looking at MSW management throughout the EU
28 + Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, it is apparent that those countries who have already

achieved the landfilling target in fact have even lower levels of landfilling. Switzerland has 0%,

while five countries, including Germany, have a landfill rate of 1%. Austria and Finland each landfill

3% of MSW, while Norway has a rate of 4% (Eurostat 2018a). This circumstance would suggest

that where effective landfilling legislation is in place levels even lower than 10% are achieved and
thus the potential for WtE could be more than 25%. Similarly, the recycling target is measured as

the percentage of MSW that is separately collected for recycling purposes. However, not all

separately collected waste is ultimately recyclable. A conservative estimate by CEWEP and the
European Commission states that 8% of separately collected waste is ultimately sent to recovery

operations and 2% to landfill (Stengler 2016). Thus, once again, the proportion of MSW available

for energy recovery would increase beyond 25%. Indeed, the net effect could be significant. In the

case of Romania, for example, the estimated gap in Table 2 is negative, suggesting an
overcapacity. However, given its relatively high level of MSW generation, these additional inputs

would likely result in a positive gap, indicating additional required capacity.

Finally, it is worth once again pointing out that the choice of Eurostat data was made in

order to maintain a certain level of comparability and reliability. Nevertheless, as discussed above,
the definition and method of measurement for some figures may vary across countries. To that

end the EU-level initiatives in this area also strongly aim at achieving homogenization with regard

to definitions and measurements. The Czech Republic offers a clear example of the necessity of

such efforts. Eurostat relies on MSW data from the Czech Statistical Office despite the fact that
the competent authority in the country is the Ministry of Environment (Czech Statistical Office

2016). The former provides an estimated figure of 3.58 million tonnes of MSW in 2016, while the

latter cites a figure of 5.612 million tonnes based on its collected data (Ministry of the Environment

of the Czech Republic 2018). Long-standing discussions between the two authorities are likely to
resolve this discrepancy, but in the meantime it is worth considering both sets of data (Czech

Statistical Office 2016). Using the MZP figure, a capacity gap of 677,000 tonnes is calculated, which

may be regarded as a more realistic estimate in the case of Czech Republic. Once again, this

Project co-funded by the European Union
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