Biowaste to fuel - what's leading research and applications?

摘要

Concepts for waste management schemes and priorities have quickly evolved during the last decades. The definition of a waste management hierarchy established by the European Union has been an important step. Priorities, organised in a linear flow, have been defined from the most preferred one, minimisation/avoidance, to the least desirable, landfilling. Evolutions of this scheme are oriented to and influenced by the concepts of the circular economy and ecological dynamics. In these views landfilling represents a storage or a sink solution to immobilise all those substances exiting the circular flows. Avoidance and minimisation are intended to preserve non-renewable material resources and to reduce energy production from fossil fuel, being a non-renewable energy source contributing to climate changes (Cossu, 2009).