The Added Value of the Balance Method for Waste-to-Energy Operators and National Authorities

In recent years different methods, including manual sorting, selective dissolution, the radiocarbon method and the Balance Method have been developed to determine the biomass content of waste, and thus the fraction of renewable energy and fossil CO 2 emissions produced by WTE plants. Until now all of these methods have been applied to different WTE plants and different wastes aiming at, on the one hand, the determination of characteristic values for the biomass content and fossil CO 2 emissions and on the other hand, at a comparison of the different analysis methods. With respect to the latter, results of the different studies indicate that methods requiring waste feed sampling – e.g. sorting analysis or selective dissolution method – are much more vulnerable to waste heterogeneity and temporal changes in waste composition as quantities of manageable waste samples (at Maximum a few tons) are very small in comparison to the total amount thermally utilized.