Waste-to-Energy Solutions for the Urban Environment

Urban waste generation and disposal has become a major global issue. As the world's population continues to grow toward the 7 billion mark and more people move to urban areas, the amount of waste generated will soon become unmanageable. In 2008, the number of people living in cities surpassed those living in rural areas and it has been estimated that by 2030, 5 billion people will be living in cities. As our urban areas continue to grow and consume large quantities of energy and produce massive amounts of waste, we are faced with the challenge of how to manage this situation in a sustainable way. The waste generated by this increased urbanization of humans civilizations and industries will have to be sorted and processed in some way. The most common and widespread solution is landfilling, but landfills around the world are running out of space at an alarming rate. Waste-to-Energy technology could provide a solution to this problem in the forms of anaerobic digestion and plasma gasification. These two technologies could be used in the urban environment separately or complimentarily to reduce the amount of waste requiring processing and landfilling.