Enormous amounts of waste continue to pile up in Austria following major flooding that hit Central Europe in September. A shutdown at the Dürnrohr waste to energy (wte) plant in Lower Austria due to flood damage has made it harder to clear the backlog of waste which accumulated once the flood waters receded.
Operating company EVN said in late November that it began the process of bringing the Dürnrohr plant back online in the middle of the month, and that it tentatively planned for the facility to be fully operational again by early December.
Dürnrohr, Austria's largest municipal waste incineration plant, was severely damaged after September's prolonged rains, leaving some 1,400 tonnes of residual waste per day unprocessed, reports the Association of Austrian Waste Management Companies (VOEB). Over the entire shutdown period, this would have amounted to a total volume of up approximately 80,000 tonnes. According to VOEB, an additional 50,000 tonnes of bulky waste arisings were generated as a result of the floods.
The Austrian waste and resource management industry had pooled its resources, finding ways to mitigate the effects of the treatment bottleneck such as temporarily storing residual waste, transporting it to waste incineration plants further afield and in some cases even exporting the material for which no offtaker could be found, VOEB reported.
The additional time and financial outlay required to set up interim storage facilities, long transport routes and complex notifications for export had been enormous, the association emphasized. "We are currently dealing with a historic backlog of waste. The Austrian waste management system suffered substantial disruptions due to the flooding and we are left facing enormous challenges that will be with us for years to come," explained VOEB President Gabriele Jüly. Sie stressed that despite these difficulties, waste would continue to be managed appropriately.
High costs for interim storage and scant capacities in neighbouring countries
"Many of our member companies are still being forced to shred – at considerable expense – construction, industrial and commercial waste that usually undergoes energy recovery. The material is baled and stored temporarily until it can be processed in a wte facility", Ms Jüly said. This was necessary due to the limited capacity available at other wte plants in Austria which are currently unable to treat all of the additional waste generated.
Interim solutions such as the construction of additional storage areas or the transfrontier shipment of waste involve complex approval procedures and additional costs. Some of Austria’s neighbouring countries had also been affected by the flooding or had exhausted their own incineration capacity, for instance Italian waste as being shipped to Switzerland for energy recovery, VOEB reported. This meant that the capacity shortages and increasing gate fees for waste incineration was impacting western Austria, too.
The waste management association urged the public to source-separate their waste carefully, as it would both ensure that valuable waste materials could be recycled, and reduce the amount of residual waste that had to be incinerated. Waste management companies were working flat out to overcome the post-flood waste glut, "but it will be a long time before the backlog is cleared," predicted VOEB.
Dürnrohr wte plant provisionally back in full operation
Wte plant operator ENV reported that parts of its Dürnrohr waste processing plant were back in operation. "We can now process around 600 tonnes of waste in Lower Austria every day. That is around 40 percent of the usual capacity,” reported EVN CEO Stefan Stallinger. The facility's other two lines were expected to follow in the next few weeks.
