Recycling municipal, agricultural and industrial waste into energy, fertilizers, food and construction materials, and economic feasibility: a review

The global amount of solid waste has dramatically increased as a result of rapid population growth, accelerated urbanization, agricultural demand, and industrial development. The world's population is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, while solid waste production will reach 2.59 billion tons. This will deteriorate the already strained environment and climate situation. Consequently, there is an urgent need for methods to recycle solid waste. Here, we review recent technologies to treat solid waste, and we assess the economic feasibility of transforming waste into energy. We focus on municipal, agricultural, and industrial waste. We found that methane captured from landfilled-municipal solid waste in Delhi could supply 8-18 million houses with electricity and generate 7140 gigawatt-hour, with a prospected potential of 31,346 and 77,748 gigawatt-hour by 2030 and 2060, respectively. Valorization of agricultural solid waste and food waste by anaerobic digestion systems could replace 61.46% of natural gas and 38.54% of coal use in the United Kingdom, and could reduce land use of 1.8 million hectares if provided as animal feeds. We also estimated a levelized cost of landfill solid and anaerobic digestion waste-to-energy technologies of $0.04/kilowatt-hour and $0.07/kilowatt-hour, with a payback time of 0.73-1.86 years and 1.17-2.37 years, respectively. Nonetheless, current landfill waste treatment methods are still inefficient, in particular for treating food waste containing over 60% water.

Automated summary

The global amount of solid waste has increased dramatically due to population growth, urbanization, agricultural demand, and industrial development. Recycling methods are urgently needed to tackle this issue. Recent technologies have been reviewed for solid waste treatment, focusing on municipal, agricultural, and industrial waste. The conversion of waste into energy shows great potential, such as methane capture from landfills and anaerobic digestion systems for agricultural and food waste. Economic feasibility studies have shown positive results, with estimated costs and payback times for waste-to-energy technologies.