More information

• European perspective on SRF
• UK policy needs and perspective on SRF
• NGO view of SRF
• Role of Fuel Standards
• UK experience of SRF production
• Carbon footprint of SRF production and use
• Market development for SRF in Europe
• Industry sector and country experience of SRF from Europe
• Permitting SRF
• Financial incentives for SRF
• UK market development

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Germany reports a significant increase in the use of SRF due to the complete landfill ban of 2005. In other countries stagnation is reported partly due to the fact, that a lot of material suitable for fuel prodiction can still be landfilled. As another potential threat the participants mentioned the very high subsidies partly given to the use of biomass as a fuel, while for SRF in several countries not even the biomass content is counted for Kyoto targets or subsidised in the same way.

ERFO will take this unbalanced policy as a main target for the future. "Not all actual ways of using biomass are really sustainable, some even lead either to disctruction of natural forests" was one of the critical arguments. The actual work on a biomass action plan and the renewal of the RES-E directive will be two important issues to work on.

ERFO is preparing a trademark for SRF in Europe, which will need to be used high quality standards and third party certification for the fuel produced and sold.

ERFO is also carefully following the discussion about the new waste framework directive, where especially the way the term "recovery" is defined, can leed to substantial market distortions. "We can live with the actual definition in the latest drafts of the council, but the discussions hae not yet reached a final step, and still also rather difficult definitions are thinkable".

"All significant technical specifications have been unanimously approved in the votes", says Martin Frankenhaeuser, the Finnish chairman of the CEN’s Technical Committee on Solid Recovered Fuels. The vote was preceded by three years of detailed preparation.

Preliminary standards will be published after final editing, probably in June. This will be followed by an evaluation process, during which the functioning of the specifications will be verified. Sampling, quality control and analyses will be tested in practice to make sure that the results are comparable and within the margin for error. Depending on the outcome, possible changes will be addressed in 2007. Frankenhaeuser believes that the final standards will be published within the next few years.

According to Uusiouutiset, European standards for SRF are sorely needed, as current national practices vary considerably. This has caused problems, especially in international trading of recovered fuels.

The technical specifications classify the SRF by thermal value, chlorine content and mercury content. For example, the thermal value class will be based on the number of megajoules one kilogram of recovered fuel contains on arrival. The system divides the thermal value, chlorine content and mercury content into five categories.

In addition, there are many characteristics for which no specific values have been determined. Instead, they can be agreed upon between the producer and the purchaser of SRF.

Along with the standardization process, a validation project called QUOVADIS on solid recovered fuels is currently being implemented. Half of it is financed by the EU Commission under the 6th Framework Programme within the Intelligent Energy Systems for Europe Project. The three-year project is now in its second year.

(Finnish Recycling News Uusiouutiset, Finland)