Waste Management in Greece and Potential for Waste-to-Energy

Abstract

In Greece the daily production of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is estimated to be 15,000 tones, which means roughly 5.4 million tons per year, from which 77% is deposited in Landfills, 23% is recycled and composted. The European Union Legislation for Sanitary Landfills (1999/31/EC), imposes the decrease of biodegradable waste that are deposit to sanitary landfills; thus WtE methods of MSW is one of the best, in terms of affordability in a competitive world and environmental friendly, proposed solutions. Waste-to-Energy methods produce steam and/or electricity. Also, the weight of MSW is reduced up to 70–80% and the volume up to 90%, and finally the land area requirements are very small. Our proposal for the WtE technology implementation in Greece is the construction of MSW WtE plants in all major cities operating with an annual capacity of 200,000–400,000 tones. The required land area will be only 4–7 ha. The basic income of such plants is the gate fee, varying from 50 to 80 €/ton. The second income comes from selling of the produced electricity to the Public Power Corporation for 87.85 €/ΜWh (referring to the biodegradable fraction of MSW), according to the new Greek law for renewable energy sources (L. 3851/2010). Additional income comes from the recovered metals of the bottom ash. Furthermore, there is a considerable prospect for state subsidy of the whole investment, according to the Greek Development Law.