News

October 22, 2008

Reclaim Resources Signs Contract To Convert Municipal Waste To Ethanol In The Philippines

By Rue Swabey

Reclaim Resources is a UK-based company which has developed a patented technology that recycles municipal domestic waste. Its Vantage Waste Processing (VWP) facility treats and sanitizes unsorted waste by injecting steam into a continuously-fed, rotating chamber. This process of thermal hydration reduces the volume of sanitized waste by up to 60 per cent. And the final product can be used to generate either bio-ethanol or electricity. Each VWP unit processes 10 tonnes of waste per hour or around 75,000 tonnes per year. The typical residue is 63 per cent biomass, 18 per cent plastic, five per cent textiles, four per cent ferrous, one per cent aluminium and nine per cent other material. The metals and plastics can be sold for recycling as they are clean and de-labelled, and the other material, which is mostly china, glass and rubber, can be sold as aggregate. No smells are emitted during the process as an odour removal system is incorporated in the extract ducting.

Today the majority of UK household waste is buried or incinerated. The former method of disposal takes up space and renders the land unusable for many years. It also carries the risk of toxic effluent leaching into the land. Incineration for its part generates harmful sulphur emissions and uses a large amount of energy. In comparison, there are multiple benefits to the VWP system. There is no need to pre-sort waste, which reduces the need to duplicate waste collections. It is modular and...