II. Caution required with energy recovery

objective should not direct the public authorities’ attention solely towards building landfill infrastructures. This approach generally leads to over-sized landfills and the destruction of existing recovery channels. While landfilling in good sanitary and environmental conditions remains a priority, it needs to be implemented in parallel to waste recovery efforts and not to their detriment. As in Bogotá since 2014, most “zero-waste” policies worldwide have emerged amidst tensions over the extension/creation of disposal sites (Sidibe, 2015). The fact that these sites have become saturated is now a positive driver for new waste recovery and reduction practices. Global South countries have some lead in avoiding waste generation due to their consumption patterns and production methods. This allows landfills to be minimally sized and helps to abate tensions.

Be it the capture and recovery of landfill biogas or incineration, decision-makers view energy recovery as a simple solution (being centralised and linear) that helps to resolve the problem definitively (as waste volumes are significantly reduced). The development of incineration along with energy recovery has also helped to move this technology forward as it produces electricity or heat from waste (instead of fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change). Yet, the global North countries (e.g., in northern Europe) that have mobilised this technology on a large-scale have now started to limit its use as the recovery is less complete than recycling or composting. Moreover, exploiting this technology to a maximum is at odds with the injunction to reduce the amount of waste (Rocher, 2008, Wilts & von Gries, 2015). Plans to develop incineration need to take into account the complex interactions among actors whose livelihood depends on waste recycling, as well as local environmental impacts caused by the residues of this treatment method (leachate infiltration, production of clinker, MSWIR, etc.) and global environmental impacts (GHG emissions, destruction of secondary raw materials).

1. Incineration: limited success for managing very large waste stocks

Incineration has made its way into global South countries as it compensates for the lack of landfill sites in very dense urban areas. Yet, the waste composition (high moisture content) greatly complicates implementing this technology. In all cases, the cost of incineration with adequate flue gas treatment is certainly much higher than that of other treatment methods and proves burdensome for cash-strapped municipalities. Attempts to finance incineration by selling electricity have systematically failed, as feed-in tariffs remain very low (de Bercegol, 2016). Following the crisis sparked by the saturation of disposal sites, one of the solutions envisaged in Delhi was to build three incinerator plants (one for each municipality in the city’s outer suburbs). Delhi’s public authorities called on large private Indian groups to build and operate the three incinerators. The first incinerator1 has been running since 2012. However, the opening of both the Ghazipur incinerator by ILFS (1,300 t/day,10 MW) and the Narela-Bawana incinerator by Ramky (4,000 t/day, 24 MW) was delayed several times for technical reasons until their recent opening in 2017. Only the Okhla incinerator managed by Jindal (2,500 t/day,

1 A first incinerator was in fact built in 1984 by Danish cooperation but never operated (as the waste was too wet).

16 MW) has been effectively operational since 2009. It nonetheless runs at reduced capacity due to technical problems mainly caused by the quality of incoming waste (high percentage of inert and organic wastes and, to a lesser degree, clinker). For instance, due to the poorly adapted technology, the process for refuse-derived fuel (RDF) has been abandoned in favour of simple furnaces that dry the waste before it is burned. The situation in Delhi has been marked by the arrival of powerful national companies operating in the energy recovery business. These players now want control over the upstream service in order to control the waste streams entering their facilities. The incinerator operators would like to see private door-to-door collection introduced in the hope of limiting the “skimming” of highly calorific materials by informal wastepickers. This would, however, mean that the informals, who also want to recover waste, would be deprived of their economic activities. Added to this is the legal challenge from emerging coalitions of opponents who are demanding a halt to incineration technologies and criticising them as polluting and dangerous. A collective comprising residents, environmentalist movements and wastepickers associations1 has taken legal action to have the Okhla incineration plant closed down. Some opponents proceeded on the grounds that the facility’s environmental impact is not totally under control, 2 while others highlighted that operating such facilities creates a voracious need for waste that has hurt the materials recovery activities formerly carried out by thousands of informals. Although the Delhi incinerator is not cost-effective, its cost is very low (27 €/t) compared to European plants (120 €/t), which indicates that the expensive operations to depollute flue gas and clinker are not implemented. If flue gas cleaning is deficient – which is a high risk when operating the infrastructure under difficult conditions –, the functioning of these incinerators may exacerbate an already disastrous situation for Delhi’s air quality. Finally, the economic operating model has so far not proved cost-effective, as the cost of the waste-to-energy process is higher than the cost of generating electricity in thermal power plants, and thus unattractive. In 2016, the operator Jindal announced that it wished to negotiate a new contract to sell its electricity at 6 rupees/kWh (instead of current price of 2.5 rupees), which would enable it to cover the depreciation and operating costs for its plant (de Bercegol, 2016). 3

2. Refuse-derived fuel: a by-product of waste separation

In Mahajanga (Madagascar), the city’s household waste composting plant converts wood (baskets, green woody waste, etc.), paper and cardboard waste into solid fuel, but does not process plastics. These materials can be considered as refuse-derived fuels (RDFs), currently

1 Safai Sena (which groups together primary waste collectors), All India Kabadi Mazdoor Mahasangh (which groups together itinerant waste buyers and local traders), NGOs advocating environmental justice such as Chintan,

Hazards Centre, Toxics Watch Alliance and Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). 2 According to those opposing the incinerator, as organic waste does not burn easily, little of this waste will ultimately avoid being sent to disposal sites. The emissions produced by combustion are not taken into account, even though they appear to be significant (Toxics Watch, 2016). Installing waste incinerators would thus actually worsen the already catastrophic quality of air, the concentration of fine particles being nearly 15 times higher than the standards set by the World Health Organization. In addition, the incinerators operating in 2015 send clinker, ash and MSWIR to open disposal sites, which is a significant source of air, soil and water pollution.

Lastly, the NGO Toxic Watch Alliance states that, despite the inspections conducted by the Pollution Control

Board, this pollution cannot be fully evaluated since the Indian laboratories entrusted with these verifications are not equipped to detect the presence of the released heavy metals, dioxins and furans (http://www.toxicswatch.org/2016/06/twas-submission-on-violation-of.html). 3 Since then, the Indian government has mentioned increasing the feed-in tariff, but this has not materialised since the country’s rise of solar energy tends to keep electricity prices below 5 rupees/kWh…