TOPWASTE - the optimal treatment of waste.

The objectives of the project is to contribute to improved use of waste for energy or material recycling integrating economic and environmental considerations including resource scarcity.

 
Important questions to answer by the project will be:

  • How much waste will we have in the future?
  • What is the future optimal treatment of waste fractions in terms of economy and the environment: recycling or energy production?
  • Which regulatory and organizational measures may support the achievement of political goals under different market conditions?
This is done by developing a coordinated set of four tools to analyze and plan investments and activities, taking into account that the waste management sector and the energy sector are intertwined and will be subject to new market conditions:

  1. A new least-cost optimization model which prioritizes between different current and emerging recycling and waste-to-energy alternatives (OptiWaste) 
  2. A new life cycle assessment (LCA) tool giving an overview of environmental impacts (EnviroWaste) 
  3. An improved econometric model which projects the future amounts of waste (FRIDA) 
  4. An improved least-cost optimization model of the national energy system assessing the impact of waste on the energy system (Balmorel).


The tools are applied to the Danish situation through analyses of future scenarios.

There are 11 project partners from research, consultancy and industry from Denmark, Sweden and USA. Furthermore, the project includes advisory board members from 8 institutions in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Sweden and 3 industrial collaborators.

The project which will run from January 2011 until December 2014. it is partially funded by the Danish Council for Strategic Research

Read more at the TOPWASTE web-site http://www.topwaste.dk/ 

 

Page updated  by   13.10.2011


Marie Münster
Researcher
Systems Analysis (SYS)
Dir tel+45 46775166