The German Federal Government has set clear targets for long-term waste disposal: by 2020, treatment methods should be improved and developed to a degree allowing all municipal solid waste in Germany to be recycled completely and in an ecologically acceptable manner.  The aim is the complete utilisation of the energetic potential contained in waste.

This means that no waste treatment residues may be deposited on ground-level landfills from the year 2020. Underground repositories for deposition of filter dusts will however continue to exist.

Waste Incineration Remains Chief Component

This aim can already be achieved with existing treatment methods today. The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) conducted a study involving various combinations of current treatment methods and comparing their efficiency with regard to optimal recovery and cost.

The study concluded that the combinable treatment methods represented in the scenarios are partly already used today. The most important element of this combination however is, and will continue to be, the incineration process. Specific waste incineration plant optimisation methods are being tested and are currently at the experimental stage. These plants only require slight modification to fulfil the final target sets for 2020.