Outputs: This project is aimed toward demonstrating a best practice model for developing a community waste-to-energy system and effective handling of household plastics waste. Inter-collaboration between local communities, the government, and private business sectors is targeted for the purpose of improving the circular economy by taking advantage of the proposed waste-to-energy system and waste management scheme. 

(1)  Research work: A detailed techno-economic analysis will be conducted for evaluating the economic aspect of the community waste-to-energy system, in order to assist the policy-making for this propose. The techno-economic analysis of the proposed community waste-to-energy system is to perform the economic evaluation of the system according to the process analysis of the waste-to-energy technology. The mass and energy flows resulted from the process analysis contribute to the economic evaluation. This research work will be firstly based on the literature surveys of the community waste management and the power generation throughout the APEC economies. A detail process analysis (performed by the Leading Researchers) will be carried out including the household waste management, thermal processing of the waste, waste-to-energy process and energy delivery to the households. Then, a detailed techno-economic analysis (performed by the Leading Researchers) will be conducted according to the mass and energy balances obtained from the process analysis. The results of the economic analysis, in the form of electricity-bill-deduction per tonne of household waste managed will be validated by a commercial waste-to-energy system operated by a local industry (the validation will be conducted by the Consultant). 

(2) Workshop: An international workshop will be conducted with the participation of international experts on waste-to-energy from 9 APEC economies for the purpose of exchange of best practice and experience. This workshop offers a shared experience of the best practice model for developing a community waste-to-energy system and provides a check-list, peer reviews, consultations, and feedback that can lead to further revisions in the proposal. Researchers from 9 APEC and non-APEC economies including Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Viet Nam, the USA, Chinese Taipei, Saudi Arabia, and Australia will contribute to designing the best model for a community waste-to-energy system. In addition, experts from EGNRET and APEC representative economies will also be invited for the purpose of monitoring and reviewing the workshop. The general information with agenda will be circulating by October 13, 2021.

(3) Project Final Report: The project final report will be produced from the highlighted recommendations and will include the suggested platform for developing a community waste-to-energy system and an approach to household plastics waste management in the APEC region. The expected length of the Project Final Report is 15 pages and will be written-up by the Leading Researchers. The main content of the report will include an introduction to the waste-to-energy system, a discussion of the technical feasibility of community waste-to-power generation, the financial mechanism based on the case study for a circular economy in a specific community, a proposal for household plastics waste handling management in a domestic community, the APEC legislative and policy framework (the waste-to-energy policy survey in the APEC economies) on waste-to-energy platform, challenges and barriers, recommendations, etc.. In addition, the results from the Research Work which present the electricity-bill-deduction per tonne of household waste managed based on the process analysis and techno-economic analysis will be included in the Project Final Report. This report will be uploaded to the EGNRET website and will also be delivered to interested stakeholders. 

Outcomes: The outcomes are expected to achieve including:

1. All of APEC Economies’ existing policy frameworks for developing a waste-to-energy systems and waste handling management will be categorized and evaluated. A preliminary final report on waste-to-energy system and waste handling management resulted from local case study in Chinese Taipei will be presented as well. The outcome will be reported to EGNRET 55 and the workshop. Within the social and knowledge diversity from each APEC economies, it will provide the EGNRET’s participant more inspirations to guide their government to revise and improve the policy for developing community waste-to-energy system and household plastics waste handling management.

2. It can be found that few of APEC economies still lack of established community waste-to-energy system. The review case studies of the existing waste-to-energy system and household plastics waste handling management from APEC developed economies in this project may provide other economies the best practice models including the feasible technology on waste-to-power generation applied for the domestic community, economic of waste-to-power generation that can be implemented in each of APEC economies and the method of social approach for building the awareness in household plastics waste handling management. 

3.  A study case in Chinese Taipei will established involving in the primary stakeholders of waste-to-energy companies, local government, community leaders, and scientist. The preliminary result based on the data and the model case of community waste-to-energy would lead private sectors to develop appropriate waste-to-energy system technology which can cooperate with local government and community leaders for developing community based waste-to-energy system 

Beneficiaries: This project aims to demonstrate a best practical model for developing the community waste-to-energy system and household plastics waste handling management. The short-term beneficiaries are to provide a new concept of renewable energy and waste-to-energy for the participants attending the workshop and the direct users of the project report and online source. The participants include the government officials from energy/environment (with working experience of 10 years), power plant managers (with working experience of 15 years), industrial energy system designers (with working experience of 10 years), energy/environmental researchers from research institutes (with experience of 10 years), community leaders (with residency of 10 years) and university professors (with experience of 5 years) from the APEC economies, which have the experience of policy execution, energy grid/distribution, energy system integration, waste management/pollution control/power generation, community issues and energy/environmental/economic researches, respectively. They can exchange ideas during the workshop, make plans of inter-collaboration, learn the community waste-to-energy platform from the workshop and share to their contacts, including policy-makers, community residences, industrial energy engineers, researchers and students. The mid-term beneficiaries for the successful community waste-to-energy system are to assist the policy-makers in the APEC economies to make new policy for sustainable energy, waste removal and air pollution reduction. The concept proposed in this project would help the local governments in the APEC economies to reduce the tax or electricity price in the community which demonstrates the waste-to-energy platform, as the appropriate waste management to electricity generation is performed within.  The long-term beneficiaries for promoting the community waste-to-energy system are to assist the rural communities including APEC and non-APEC economies to provide self–sustained power generation, to reduce the waste and air pollutions, and to achieve the concept of circular economy, for obtaining better life conditions.