Creating electricity and fertilizers from organic municipal waste (

Type of practice Recover

Name of practice Creating electricity and fertilizers from organic municipal waste (

Name of main actor Rayong Municipality

Type of actor(s) Public authority

Location Thailand

Stage of implementation End-of-life

Year of implementation 2007

What was/is being done? In Thailand, the development of alternative energy sources became especially critical when the government set 2011 as the target date for 8 percent of the nation’s total energy reduction (Mueller, 2007). This gave rise to various large-scale biogas projects. For example, the Rayong Municipality constructed a wet fed-batch highsolids plant for the treatment of the organic portion of municipal solid waste. The plant is comprised of two systems: a process that converts waste to biogas and fertilizer, and a biogas-fired cogeneration process. In addition to the solid organic waste from the municipality, the Rayong plant processes food, vegetable and fruit waste and human waste as waste materials.

Outcomes and impacts The plant can handle 60 tonnes of waste per day. As a result, it can turn out 5 800 tonnes of organic fertilizer and electricity of about 5 million kWh, which in turn prevents 3 656 tonne CO2 eq. emissions that would have come if waste was sent to unmanaged landfill instead.