Recovery Potential of Municipal Solid Waste for Hydrogen Generation

By 2050, 3.40 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) will be generated (Kaza et al. in What a waste 2.0: A global snapshot of solid waste management to 2050. World Bank Publications, 2018). In 2018, the United States produced approximately 811 kg per capita, totalling 292 billion tonnes, while according to Eurostat, 530 kg of MSW was produced per capita in 2021. Landfilling treatment was 50% in the United States and Europe, while 11.8% was combusted, 32% recycled or composted, and 6.2% was submitted to alternative treatments. Regarding the European situation, led by Austria, Denmark, and Luxembourg, of all the municipal wastes generated by the E.U. in 2020, 48% were recycled (considering recycling and composting), while 26% were submitted to incineration and landfilling. Incineration accounted for over 80% of energy recovery facilities in 2015, while the remaining have only functioned as final disposal units. There is a need to shift from conventional waste disposal methods to advanced technologies to manage these waste piles and the related health and environmental issues related to their disposal. Despite the up-to-date technologies, only 250 Waste-to-energy (WtE) plants have been built worldwide in the last 15 years. Here, we discussed some existing MSW technologies used in converting waste to energy, analysed the challenges through a look at the life cycle assessment (LCA) of waste-to-energy technologies, and identified the features of waste-to-energy in promoting the Circular economy.