Lower Logistics Costs = More Resources for Treatment

Mechanical Treatment (MT) units allow unsorted waste (without selective collection) to be separated into three main fractions: recyclables, organics, and rejects. This enables the valorization of each of these fractions to recover materials on an industrial scale and generate renewable energy within the urban perimeter.

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The investments necessary for the implementation and operation of MT units are made possible by the financial resources saved through the rationalization of logistics services.

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The rationalization of logistics services is achieved through:

 

• reduction of transport distances, since the MT units for unsorted waste are installed within the urban perimeter, in locations much closer than distant landfills,

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• reduction of the volume of waste to be transported to distant landfills, which allows for greater productivity of each collection truck, enabling it to complete collection routes more quickly.

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This streamlining of logistics services directly impacts the efficiency of waste collection and transportation services, as it allows the same population to be served with a fleet of collection trucks at least 30% smaller than the fleet currently in use.

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By promoting this significant savings in collection and transportation services (lower CAPEX and OPEX costs for collection trucks), a significant portion of the resources needed to implement industrial units that enable the valorization of each fraction of unsorted waste becomes available, thus redistributing costs among essential public cleaning and treatment services, reducing the amount of material sent to landfills, and bringing greater efficiency to the system.

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Other social, environmental, and economic benefits

When local governments (municipalities) prioritize the implementation of industrial mechanical treatment units for unsorted waste, numerous benefits can be achieved, such as:

increased lifespan of existing landfills,

 

• generation of new jobs, both in the manual sorting stage of the industrial mechanical treatment (MT) units and in the industries manufacturing new recycled products,

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• production of organic compost, a key input in organic agriculture that favors production on small farms and the healthy diet of the entire population,

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• organic compost retains moisture and fixes carbon in the soil,

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• reduction in garbage truck traffic, generating less congestion in cities, reducing CO2 emissions from all light vehicles, and decreasing travel time, regardless of whether the population uses public or private transportation,

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• enabling the emergence of new industries that use recyclable waste as raw material, thus promoting the conservation of biodiversity and natural resources by minimizing the use of existing quarries. and avoid the exploitation of new natural resource deposits,

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• depending on the region, it enables the generation of renewable energy through the combustion (burning) of the waste fraction (non-recyclable fraction of urban waste) in a Waste Energy Recovery Plant (WERP), or through the production of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for the cement industry,

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• it allows collection trucks and transfer trailers to be electric, and they can be charged with the energy generated in the Waste Energy Recovery Plant (WERP),

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• if there is no demand for organic compost in agriculture in the project region, it is possible to direct the organic fraction to bioenergy landfills for the purpose of generating electricity or producing biofuel (biomethane) used to supply the fleet of collection trucks and trailers.