Energy from waste: A possible way of meeting goal 7 of the sustainable development goals

Energy from waste has been in recent years the focus of many developing nations that are serious about tackling energy crisis especially within Africa. With the current global crash of crude oil prices, environmental pollution and global warming, renewable energy is beginning to gain more attention and among such energies termed renewable energy is biogas which could be generated from organic wastes especially municipal solid wastes. Wastes from landfill sites cuts across all sectors of life as a result there is need to categorise such wastes according to its origin, composition, toxicity and management. By doing the waste categorization, it will be easier to determine what proportion of landfill wastes could be used to produce energy that can be affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern for all which is the goal 7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research focuses on Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) classification and quantification and as a result this research work was able to successfully classify wastes into two broad categories namely: compacted round collected refuse and dailies non-compacted wastes. The paper was also able to conclude that compacted round collected refuse will always tend to produce higher percentage of organic waste as seen in the case study used for this research work which is 33% by percentage weight. Furthermore, biogas production and upgrading techniques which could be used for energy production as a means of realizing the SDGs goal 7 within the next 15 years was also explained. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.