Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Review

Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain

for circular economy system: a review
Shu-Yuan Pan a, Michael Alex Du b, I-Te Huang c, I-Hung Liu c, E-E Chang d,
Pen-Chi Chiang a, *
a
Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, ROC
b
Rutgers University, NJ, USA
c
Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan, ROC
d
Department of Biochemistry, Taipei Medical University, Taiwan, ROC

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To simultaneously solve the dilemma of energy demand, waste management, and greenhouse gas
Received 12 May 2014 emission for communities globally, the waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain as district energy system
Received in revised form should be a viable method towards circular industrial economy. Several essential state-of-the-art WTE
6 May 2015
technologies including combustion, gasication and anaerobic digestion were evaluated. Portfolio op-
Accepted 26 June 2015
Available online xxx
tions of technologies for different types of WTE supply chains were illustrated for achieving circular
economy system. Since policy makers have to address the public concerns prior to promulgate and
implement relating regulations, the strategies on implementation of WTE supply chain were proposed to
Keywords:
Municipal solid waste
overcome the challenging barriers from the aspects of technology, nance, institution and regulation. A
Bioenergy total of eight key task-forces were also proposed for effectively executing the strategies. Furthermore,
Combined heat and power several successful lessons on WTE supply chains such as green fuel pellet for heating supply and co-
District energy system digestion of organic wastes for bio-gas production around the world were reviewed and illustrated.
Business model 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Industrial park

1. Introduction
Since the diverse stream of human waste creates problems
when landll space becomes limited and chemical leachate spills
into the environment, waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain is a
feasible method of energy production that takes care of two of
humanities' environmental issues, i.e., the landlling and the
increasing need for energy, with one process. The composition and
amount of the solid wastes from a municipality varies depending
on the level of economic development, cultural norms,
geographical location, energy sources, and climate (The World
Bank, 2012). Municipal wastes can be broadly categorized as
organic, paper, plastic, glass, metals and others including textiles,
leather, rubber, multi-laminates, e-waste, appliances, ash and other
inert materials. A vast majority of the data concerning city waste is
presented as either solid waste or municipal solid waste. Solid
wastes are usually non-biodegradable, non-transformed into
degraded litters and time taking to be disposed and transformed
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 886 2 2362 2510; fax: 886 2 2366 1642.
E-mail address: pcchiang@ntu.edu.tw (P.-C. Chiang).
into natural compounds (Saha and Roy, 2011). The municipal solid
waste (MSW) is generally used to label urban or household waste
around the world. However, several papers have included com-
mercial waste, medical waste, construction waste and other ma-
terials in their denitions of municipal waste (Saha and Roy, 2011).
A City's Carbon footprint is very distinct from that of the global
norm (Sovacool, 2009). Gasoline-fueled exhaust and associated
evaporative emissions dominate the ambient hydrocarbon con-
centrations in urban areas (Parrish et al., 2011). When income and
population are constant, the spatial arrangement of a city is an
important determinant in the production of greenhouse gas
(Glaeser and Kahn, 2010). Some other factors that contribute to a
city's excessive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are due to inad-
equate government policy and the raising temperature. It was
observed that emissions are positively associated with months of
high temperature (Glaeser and Kahn, 2010).
The WTE supply chain provides a method of simultaneously
addressing the problems of energy demand, waste management
and GHG emissions to achieve a circular economy system (CES). In
other words, the CES is based on the winewin philosophy that a
prosper economy and healthy environment can be co-existed
(Tukker, 2013). Several articles have critically evaluated the role

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
0959-6526/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
2 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13

of CES in establishing a supply chain of services and/or goods using
indicator systems (Geng et al., 2012; Su et al., 2013), especially
in developing countries. Fig. 1 presents a conceptual framework of
relationships between environment, WTE supply chain and CES,
where a closed-loop of material ows including biological and
technical nutrients exists within industrial economy. Both the
economy and the environment should be maintained as a circular
relationship for facing existing environmental problems and
resource scarcity. In other words, the environment (e.g., fresh water
production and waste production), energy and CO2 emission should
be linked together for establishing the CES business model in an
industrial system. The CES should be based on the 5R principles, i.e.,
Reduction, Reuse, Recycling, Recovery, and Reclamation. Studies on
business strategies (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2012), public
awareness analyses (Liu et al., 2009) and case studies such as iron/
steelmaking (Ma et al., 2014) and printed circuit boards (Wen and
Meng, 2015) industries have been carried out for promoting the
CES to decouple the economic growth from environmental degra-
dation, and build a resource-saving society. It was noted that the
use of technological and emergent innovative practices can
improve the value of organizations and supply chains while
reducing the environmental degradation caused by their economic
growth (Park et al., 2010). Under this vision, it is expected to allow
policy makers to understand new techniques, thereby imple-
menting energy policy, introducing green technology, attracting
the interest of the public, and utilizing appropriate evaluation tools.
In this study, several essential state-of-the-art WTE technolo-
gies including combustion, gasication and anaerobic digestion
were evaluated. Portfolio options of technologies for different types
of WTE supply chains were proposed. Since strategies under
appropriate policies were essential for implementation of WTE
supply chain, a critical review on the challenging barriers and
overcome strategies was performed. Several successful case studies
around the world were illustrated based on their respective energy,
environmental and economic benets of WTE supply chain for
district energy supply (DES) system.
2. Waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies
As suggested in the literature, bio-heating (Hagos et al., 2014),

s-Daz et al.,
incineration (Pavlas et al., 2011), and co-digestion (Page
2014) were commonly utilized in the industrial park for building
the WTE supply chain. The commonality among these methods is
that they convert the bio-based waste into a form of bio-based fuel
or energy, which can be used for energy and heating supplies of a
district. In general, WTE techniques can be divided into four cate-
gories: physical, thermal, chemical and biological, as shown in
Fig. 2. By using the proper techniques, different types of biomass
such as agriculture and forestry wastes, energy crops, domestic and
household wastes, animal residues and industrial residues can be
converted into various types of bio-energy product (e.g., bio-gas,
bio-fuel and bio-char). Several approaches such as bioethanol
supply model (Avami, 2013), taxonomy criterion (Sharma et al.,
2013), mathematical programming (De Meyer et al., 2014) and
multi-objective decision making (Cambero and Sowlati, 2014) have
also been employed for optimization of WTE supply chain. In this
investigation, the commonly used processes including combustion,
gasication and anaerobic digestion processes were briey
illustrated.
2.1. Combustion
Combustion such as thermal treatment or MSW incineration
(MSWI), is one of the WTE technologies that treat about 15e20% of
municipal solid waste in OECD countries and the United States
(Klein et al., 2001). The common combustion technologies used

Fig. 1. Conceptual framework of relationship between environment, waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chains and circular economy system (CES).

Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13
Fig. 2. Technology tree of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for bioenergy utilization.
around the world included pile combustion, stoker combustion,
suspension combustion, and uidized bed combustion. The volume
of waste can be reduced by thermal treatment, making use of the
chemically bounded energy in solid wastes and destroy hazardous
materials that increase environmental and public risk. The
byproducts of the incineration process are ue gases, y ash and
bottom ash. Emissions include the following elements and com-
pounds: sulfur, chlorine, uorine, N2, CO, CO2, NOx, SO, poly-
chlorinated di-benzodioxine, furan, methane, ammonia,
Hydrochloric acid, and hydrogen uoride (Tabasov
a et al., 2012).
Emissions can be further controlled by modifying fuel compo-
sition, modifying moisture content of fuel, modifying particle size
of fuel, modication of construction chamber shape, and improved
construction/incineration application. Boiler efciency can be
inuenced by whether or not the heat of the ue gas is utilized
prior to cleaning. Prior to combustion, waste is often physically
altered in order to increase energy efciency and decrease emis-
sions. The main physical method of converting waste to energy is
called refuse-derived fuel (RDF), which is made from materials
that have been sorted out of municipal solid waste streams to
exclude glass, metals, and other non-combustible materials. The
MSW is generally treated with either a shredding or a high pres-
sured steaming process (e.g., autoclaving) to make it more compact
(Lux Research Inc., 2007). Since the moisture content in the MSW
will directly affect the combustion efciency, the waste stream is
often processed to ensure an optimal level prior to combustion.
2.2. Gasication
Conventionally, the treatments for bio-solids, e.g., pulp and
paper mill sludge and municipal sewage sludge (MSS), were land
disposal, incineration, and land application. The incineration pro-
cess involves heating under excess oxygen to completely oxidize
the organic part of sludge, whose outputs include ue gases, ashes,
wastewater, and energy (in terms of heats). On the other hand, the
MSS can be utilized by gasication process to generate H2 and CO
(i.e., syngas) and CH4, with the addition of heat and a combination
of steam, oxygen and/or nitrogen in a reaction vessel.
The syngas, if puried and cleaned, can be further converted to a
liquid fuel using a catalytic FischereTropsch process, which can
feed into an internal combustion engine-generator for electricity
production, combusted for heat recovery, used in fuel cell appli-
cations, or used for the production of a variety of chemicals (USEPA,
2012). The advantages of sludge gasication include (1) the higher
value of versatile end products, (2) the availability of the feedstock,
(3) high efciency of gasication system, (4) low costs for syngas
conversion process (USEPA, 2012). However, appropriate pre-
treatments were required if the gasication process is applied. For
example, the appropriate moisture content in sludge should be
typically between 10 and 20%, which is much lower than those in
raw sludge, i.e, 40e99%.
Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
3
2.3. Anaerobic (co-)digestion
Anaerobic digestion referred to as bio-gasication is a versatile
technology by which a renewable energy in the form of biogas can
be generated in the course of microbial decomposition of bio-
solids, thereby signicantly reducing the costs for treating wastes
and pollution. The residue has a fairly homogeneous content with
respect to major nutrients such as N, P, and K, which is benecial to
utilizing as a farmland fertilizer. Nevertheless, anaerobic digestion
of certain biomass, e.g., manure, as a sole substrate might be un-
protable due to low biogas production and some exploitation
problems. Therefore, co-digestion of various complimentary feed-
stock has been considered as a good engineering practice. The co-
digestion process facilitates acquiring a better nutritional balance,
thereby decreasing the probability of ammonia and lipids inhibit-

s-Daz et al., 2014). It
ing the process (Evangelisti et al., 2014; Page
suggests that the C/N ratio for stable anaerobic digestion operation
should range from 20 to 30, under which the anaerobic co-
digestion of municipal sewage sludge with swine manure and
poultry manure might achieve a specic biogas yield of 400 dm3
per kg VS (Borowski et al., 2014).
2.4. Portfolio options for WTE technologies
The main infrastructures including road and land accessibility,
water availability, solid waste disposal, and an electrical grid to
upload power supply are needed to be provided for construction of
WTE supply chain. A study shows that communities with WTE
efforts have higher waste recycling ratios than the national average
(Jamasb and Nepal, 2010). Recycling and waste reduction were able
to coexist in a community where energy was being generated
through WTE. Another study in Finland examined efciency of
WTE generated district heat compared to that district heat gener-
ated by traditional methods. It was concluded that the shift from
landlling to incineration WTE to supply district heat generally
yielded a lower carbon footprint (Monni, 2012). This switch also
decreases the risk of leachate into soil and groundwater
(Fruergaard et al., 2010).
Combined heat and power (CHP, also known as co-generation),
and combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP, also known as tri-
generation) technologies are commonly used in district energy
supply (Rezaie and Rosen, 2012; Wu and Wang, 2006), as well as
biomass gasication (Adams and McManus, 2014) and combustion
(Maraver et al., 2013). In general, the principles and applications of
CHP and CCHP are similar because both of them derive energy from
a single source. The main difference is that, for CCHP, cooling is one
of the desired end products for the customers. Cooling can be
achieved through several methods: cold air can be delivered via
pipe system, electricity can be used to power building cooling units
or heat delivered to buildings can be used for air conditioning by
adding a heat pump or absorption chiller.
4 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13
A great incentive for the utilization of CCHP for energy supply is
the exibility of the system. In winter, many CCHP systems can be
seen as CHP units because there is no demand for building air
conditioning. In terms of CHP, when electricity produced by WTE
replaces electricity produced by coal, the avoided emissions of
electricity cover 96% of emissions from WTE (Monni, 2012). In
comparison to sole production of district heat or dual production of
heat and electricity in separate facilities, the previously mentioned
methods of district energy offer distinct benets. By utilizing waste
heat, CHP and CCHP boost system efciency and decrease CO2
emissions. As a result, a well-designed CHP system can have an
energy efciency of over 80% (Maraver et al., 2013; Rezaie and
Rosen, 2012).
On the other hand, bio-solids gasication has been receiving the
most attention as viable options for WTE, which is capable of
providing a clean and manageable process with the possibility of
net energy gains (Adams and McManus, 2014). As suggested by
USEPA (2012), there is signicant interest around the globe in
developing this technology to commercial scale based on the
quantity of research data pertaining to sludge gasication. How-
ever, the pulp and paper mill sludge may not be a suitable candidate
for gasication due to the high moisture and mineral contents,
resulting in low energy values and uneconomical even for a full-
scale operation (USEPA, 2012).
3. Strategies on implementation of WTE supply chain
3.1. Challenging barriers to be overcome
Barriers from the aspects of technology, nance, institution, and
regulation can be encountered while implementing the WTE sup-
ply chain, as shown in Fig. 3. These barriers cannot be distinctly
separated because policy mechanisms often act on more than one
barrier simultaneously. This is especially true for institutional and
nancial barriers as they can habitually be closely related. Tech-
nology barriers, especially in the individual plants or the district
energy industries, come in the form of choosing the most efcient
and environmentally friendly type of technology; while nancial
barriers sometimes may be embodied by inaccurate electricity
prices, grid interconnection costs and high capital start-up costs.
For the technology aspect, certain steam generators used for DES in
MSWI exhibit slow start-up and poor performances, thereby
generating huge amounts of wastes (Iakovou et al., 2010), which
could be overcome by disseminating the state-of-the-art informa-
tion and providing appropriate subsidies to industries. For the
nance aspect, the marketplace includes the major challenges of
competition with more established forms of energy production,
and appropriate allocation of energy subsidies. Subsidies, in terms
of direct regulation and transfers, preferential tax treatments, trade
restrictions, and/or public funding, are often provided by the gov-
ernments to fund popular and mature forms of energy supply.
However, the energy supply industries such as petroleum and nu-
clear power have obtained a market advantage over other relatively
newer industries (Sovacool, 2009), which is highly related to the
institutional barrier.
The institutions in play are made up of the enacting authority for
policy and regulation, the energy distribution market, project in-
vestors and the local community. Decisions cannot be made
without clear awareness of the public risk and economic benet
regarding the technology and nancial support. A lack of awareness
leads to misplaced public perception that hinders the progress of
policy implementation. Therefore, the information exchange plat-
form plays an important role to achieve the WTE supply chain as
presented in Fig. 3. Another issue pertaining to the efciency of
WTE supply chain, that is often overlooked, is the ownership of DES
Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
center (such as MSWI plants). In other words, the shift from gov-
ernment plant ownership and operation to a private ownership and
operation drastically would generally increase efciency. As a
result, policy makers should take this into consideration when
deciding the ownerships and management of the plants (Chen and
Chen, 2012).
Regulatory barriers encompass the unclear National vision
(policy), goal (strategy), objective (program), target (project), and
indicator (plan), which are the challenges of appropriate policy
formulation and government authority allocation. Policy makers
should always emphasize the use of best available technologies to
ensure environmental safety and facility efciency. However,
nding appropriate sites for district energy systems nearby cus-
tomers should be a very important taskforce to achieve the goal of
optimizing the overall energy efciency, thereby maximizing the
environmental and economic benets. In addition, prior to projects
commencement, the biggest obstacle is the lack of information that
almost all involved parties possess. The needs of informing stake-
holders about currently available technology were found to be
sometimes neglected, according to the ndings in the literature
using various analysis methods such as analytical hierarchy analysis
(De Lange et al., 2012) and stakeholder interviews (Huttunen et al.,
2014; Matos and Silvestre, 2013). For instance, authorities have to
identify a community's specic waste management needs and en-
ergy demands while considering available an available budget.
According to the abovementioned barriers in different aspects, it
suggests that an effective WTE supply chain for CES should include
eight key taskforces: command and control (CC), economic in-
struments (EI), information platform (IP), technical assistance (TA),
research and development (R&D), public-private partnership (PPP),
international collaboration (IC), and environmental education (EE).
For instance, through effective CC and EE, the national policies can
be properly executed under a clear government responsibility.
Similarly, CC, EI, and IP can internalize the externalities and
improve the social acceptance in cooperated with a sound PPP. To
achieve the vision and goals, R&D should be enforced with suf-
cient economic supports using appropriate EI. At the same time, a
comprehensive performance evaluation (CPE) program should be
established with the support of R&D, TA and IC to assess the per-
formance of WTE supply chain and promote the EE.
3.2. Establishment of policy and government responsibility
Governance at both the city and national level and an appro-
priate policy must be adopted to deal with nancial, technical and
social obstacles and be steered to direct cities' signicant re-
sources of physical, human, natural and intellectual capital to-
wards the objective of a greener economy (Puppim de Oliveira
et al., 2013). In the context of WTE supply chain, actions
including agenda in policy development, formulation, adoption,
and evaluation are implemented to achieve the goal of reducing
the amount of carbon emissions and waste generated while
creating energy in a protable manner. In the past, policies have
been given categorical labels such as nancial policy, administra-
tive policy or social policy. Nowadays, the integrated policy should
encompass measures formulated with a multi-disciplinary
approach, which could be the successful way to accomplish
effective and efcient WTE supply chain while paying attention to
the multitude of actors in play. Generally, the development and
installation of a WTE supply chain will need the involvement of
whoever owns the WTE plants, a governing body, energy supply/
distribution companies, and citizens that the projects will affect
directly and indirectly.
Policy makers have to understand the specic issues that
concern the area in which they are writing a guideline for. It is
 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13 5

Fig. 3. Visualization of encounter barriers and overcome strategies for constructing WTE supply chains for circular economy system.

paramount to realize that different communities in the world will
vary in regards to energy demand, local environment, local econ-
omy, and environmental protection standards. Therefore, it is vital
that appropriate policy measures are used to ensure compatibility
and project viability. Sometimes a policy does not need to enact
large overbearing nancial mechanisms but instead just needs to
simply overcome a few local barriers. For instance, an efcient
strategic decision-making for WTE supply chain should include (1)
supply and demand contracts, (2) network conguration such as
sourcing, location and capacity of energy production facilities,
location of storage facilities and network design, and (3) ensuring
sustainability (Iakovou et al., 2010).
The scale of a plant and its associated supply chain is often
neglected when determining the policy and technical specications
of a project. A community's waste stream composition and output
level in conjunction with its available budget can affect the size of a
WTE facility and its associated energy distribution network.
Smaller scale facilities offer the advantages of smaller in road
transport, smaller operating costs, location viability, potential for
community ownership, and exibility in coping with increases in
facility capacity. The main benet of a larger plant is that it gains
effectiveness and efciency through economies of scale. Large scale
energy plants also need to be located near their source of heat
demand in order to gain the benets of energy efciency (Longden
et al., 2007).
Mostly, the government is the entity that brings together en-
ergy companies and the local communities through policy
formulation. Depending on the scale of the project, a governing
body could range anywhere from a local government to an inter-
national organization such as the European Union. A national
government will often create a department and equip it with the
proper authority to address barriers in an organized way. Gov-
ernment policy makers should recognize the need for intervention
when the market fails or when social welfare will be advanced by
their action (White et al., 2013). The government has the power to
require developers to evaluate costs and benets, control assets
and resources, require long term commitments, and co-locate the
development of a waste-to-energy facility with an efcient energy
distribution infrastructure (Hawkey et al., 2013). Municipal au-
thorities can also lower costs by linking public investment with
energy service companies (ESCO). When institutions cannot
regulate or govern, the projected benets of a policy cannot be
realized (Sarkar and Singh, 2010). Specically, the actors that a
policy affects must respect the courses of action and benchmarks
that are outlined in a policy. To gain the compliance and respect of
actors in play, a policy enforcing authority should offer strict

Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
6 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13
penalties for non-compliance and poor performance (Sovacool,
2009).
Comprehensiveness, consistency, and exibility are the major
traits that must be maintained to obtain success in policies. A policy
becomes comprehensive by incorporating insight from a wide
range of disciplines and accounting for externalities e its mecha-
nisms should be synergistic. It stays consistent by being clear in its
goals and following up through evaluating measures that have been
taken. A policy with uncertain goals can result in the negative
consequences of a collapsed project and subsequently become
worse than no policy at all. In contrast, well dened goals and
measures can make projects feasible, loans easier to obtain and
progress simpler to gauge. Another object concerning the concept
of consistency is the need for policy makers to make changes as
minimal and as infrequent as possible. A constantly shifting policy
will result in reluctant investors and limited progress during pro-
duction. In addition, a policy needs to be formulated with pre-
cautions making it t enough to handle changes in the political and
economic landscape. A plant and its associated energy distribution
network should be able to predict how they would function when
changes occur (White et al., 2013). Consequently, a successful WTE
supply chain among plants can demonstrate its environmental and
economic benets, as suggested by the national sustainable
development policy (Shih et al., 2004).
3.3. Provisions of economic incentives and price supports
Renewable energy is the inevitable role in the circular industrial
economy; however, the price of renewable energy is much too high
for it to be a viable energy option, because many subsidies that
lower the price of fossil fuels were exist. It has been estimated that
eliminating fossil fuel subsidies would reduce global GHG emis-
sions by 6% and increase GDP by 0.1%, which can then be diverted
into developing renewable energy (Steiner, 2010). The extremely
high price of renewable energy is also attributed to the relatively
scarce supply. Internationally, the most favored government
implemented measures to produce a shift to environmentally
cleaner forms of renewable energy consist of eliminating conven-
tional subsidies, pricing electricity more accurately, enacting a na-
tional feed-in tariff, demand side management, taxes on pollution
and energy service companies. ESCO addresses barriers to in-
vestments by establishing special funds, credit lines loan guarantee
programs, market transformations, and grants, which help users to
identify package, and to nance, implement and monitor the en-
ergy savings projects. Full-scale ESCO models have been success-
fully established in North America but not evident in developing
countries. This can be attributed to the lack of legal and nancial
policies in place to enforce complex contracts in developing
countries (Assamoi and Lawryshyn, 2012).
To increase the supply of renewable energy and decrease its
price, the primary method suggested by GGND is providing inter-
national price supports through a feed-in tariffs (FITs) program. A
national FIT forces utilities to buy renewable power at a xed price
above market rates. It makes electric utilities purchase renewable
energy in a nearby service area at an elevated price for a specic
period of time. Germany is one of the greatest success countries for
implementing FITs around the world, resulting in a more than 14%
of the country's electricity now coming from renewable sources. An
FIT covers the costs of electricity grid interconnection and metering
by spreading it across all electricity customers and then slowly
declining the tariff over time. Therefore, FITs offer the benets of
ensuring a stable investment stream for project developers, sup-
pliers getting paid immediately, quickly expanding renewable po-
wer and providing a predictable industry to produce new high
paying jobs (Sovacool, 2009).
Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
In addition to FITs, other pricing and investment strategies
including fuel taxes, carbon pricing, and land development taxes
may be used that can be very effective. Among these listed options,
perhaps the most widely used is carbon pricing. Carbon pricing, by
putting a cost on the negative externalities generated by non-green
technology, makes using those technologies undesirable and thus
spurs on the research and development of better green technology.
Carbon pricing can take the form of a tax on emissions or a trading
scheme wherein the right to certain levels of GHG emissions are
traded. In Australia, carbon pricing has not only decreased carbon
emissions from electricity generation by 7.7%, a ten year low, but
has also allowed for a 2.5% continued growth in the Australian
economy (Commonwealth of Australia (2013)). In general, carbon
taxes are able to generate large scal revenues, thus serving a dual
purpose: lowering carbon emissions as well as increasing govern-
ment revenue (Carraro et al., 2012).
Taxes on pollution include mechanisms like carbon taxation and
emission trading. These taxes achieve the important job of putting
a price on pollution. Through this, they help to account for exter-
nalities that have traditionally remained unpaid for. A company
that nds itself overtaxed from pollution costs may be forced to
reevaluate its energy efciency and emission outputs. Because of
the rising price of carbon emissions worldwide, many companies
are being forced to adopt cleaner technologies. An issue that has
been cited with emission trading is that it lowers the net emissions
of an industry but can increase the emissions at a single plant site
(International Energy Agency (IEA), 2009). An individual issue like
this has to be taken care of by the policy presiding over that single
facility.
On the other hand, electricity can be priced more accurately
with the abolishment of price ceilings, elimination of declining
block-rate pricing, reecting time use in electricity bills, and
internalizing external costs. The elimination of price ceilings would
allow electricity rates to reect current market prices instead of
fueling excessive consumption, inhibiting investment and under-
valuing energy efciency. Declining block rate pricing occurs when
the per-unit price of energy decreases as the energy consumption
increases, which is offered to very large scale energy consumers.
The elimination of declining block rate pricing would promote
energy efciency and reduce the consumption of electricity. The
reection of time use in an electricity bill would show customers
how the electricity usage varies throughout the day. As a result,
customers would be able to adjust their consumption with respect
to peak and off-peak consumption hours. When the true value of
electricity is presented on a bill, a consumer will buy electricity in a
more efcient and environmentally conscious manner (Sovacool,
2009).
3.4. Development of comprehensive performance evaluation
program
Since the nal piece of the policy puzzle comes in the form of
evaluation, comprehensive performance evaluation (CPE) pro-
grams are required to assess how successful the policy factors are at
achieving preset goals. It is something that needs to be done before
a policy is enacted, during the process of implementation, and after
goals have been met. This ensures proper planning, optimal func-
tion and insight for future improvements respectively. Because a
policy acts on a community in a multi-faceted way, evaluations
need to have a diverse approach as well. Key performance in-
dicators (KPIs), quantiable measures of an institution's ability to
accomplish their set goals, must be developed and used for
assessing progress regarding the implementation of WTE supply
chain for CES. The UNEP has identied three primary areas that will
act as the most benecial KPIs when measuring various aspects of
 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13
green economies: indicators of resource efciency, economic
transformation, and human progress and well-being (UNEP, 2012).
For instance, wastes from the large industrial plants can be used
as the energy source for power generation; while wastes from the
small scale livestock industry can be used as the energy source for
heating purpose. Moreover, the MSW incineration plant can be
integrated with the steam cooking system to form a regional
biomass center. Therefore, building a WTE commercialized model
(business) plant should be essential to improve the quality of bio-
energy, and to demonstrate and evaluate the engineering tech-
nology. After evaluations, policy makers (or stakeholders) have to
compare the results of their behavior guidance with their original
goals (Matos and Silvestre, 2013). They need to decide if their
communities are moving in the proper direction or if policy needs
to be tweaked. Through revisions and amendments, a policy can be
adjusted in light of new information which is consistent with the
management method so-called plan-do-check-action (PDCA)
cycle, as originally suggested by Shewhart (1930), and is illustrated
in Fig. 4.
Demand side management (DSM) is a term used to describe
programs implemented to change the consumption pattern of
consumers, such as the behavior of a household. A successful DSM
program should include marketing strategies with multiple ap-
proaches, programs targeting specic audiences, technical assis-
tance for customers, simple program procedures for customers to
understand potential benets, and nancial incentives to attract
attention and reduce initial costs (Sovacool, 2009). Two methods,
i.e., cost benet analysis (CBA) and life cycle assessment (LCA), are
commonly utilized for evaluating CPE programs. CBA can be used to
estimate and aggregate the costs and benets associated with a
project while taking into account key determinants. This is an
assessment tool applied in welfare economics to compare total
costs and benets of alternative policies. In catering to WTE supply
chain, a CBA would look at the direct costs of operating and
maintenance and the xed costs that do not vary with output
(Jamasb and Nepal, 2010).
On the other hand, LCA is a compilation and evaluation of inputs,
outputs and potential environmental impacts of a product system
throughout its life cycle. It was originally used in product analysis
Fig. 4. Policy (PDCA) cycle for establishment and implementation of WTE Supply Chains.
Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
7
but it recently has been widespread in analyses of waste manage-
ment system (Assamoi and Lawryshyn, 2012; Kirkeby et al., 2006),
incineration facility (Reis, 2011; Riber et al., 2008), carbon footprint
in industrial park (Dong et al., 2013), etc. Scenario evaluation is
used by environmental impact studies to estimate exposure levels
in humans while paying attention to time of contact and linking
them to their sources. Environmental impacts can be evaluated
through LCA associated with material and energy consumptions
(Damgaard et al., 2010) and stakeholder involvement (Huttunen
et al., 2014). Another method used to evaluate human exposure
level is bio-monitoring, which is a direct approach for approxi-
mating actual levels of exposure to a pollutant of interest. Although
most decisions about human health risk assessment are political,
they need to have scientic backing; the extent of uncertainties in
assessments should be well known (Reis, 2011).
3.5. Internalization of externalities, social acceptance and investor
mobilization
Externalities can arise through a number of links in the WTE
supply chain: health effects of congestion from waste transport
vehicles, unsightliness of incineration facilities (Jamasb and Nepal,
2010). There has been consensus among public health ofcials that
airborne pollutants from incineration lead to premature mortality.
For the most part, human exposure to solid residue and cooling
water discharge can be mitigated through proper operating pro-
cedures. However, airborne emissions are no longer controllable
once they are released. They have a large number of different
substances that, even at low level, have a great impact on envi-
ronment and human health due to characteristics of environmental
persistence, long half-life and inherent toxicity (Reis, 2011). There
are also less easily quantiable externalities that affect the envi-
ronment surrounding a facility such as blown waste, dust, spores,
ies, and other pest species attracted to waste material. In addition,
transportation vehicles can create road trafc, noise pollution and
additional dust. Therefore, it is important that facilities use up-to-
date technologies with appropriate ue gas controls to reduce
airborne emissions.
8 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13
For the public acceptance, cultural theory can be used as a
heuristic device to help frame public opinions; for instance, on
renewable energy. West et al. (2010) assert even when a certain
amount of information is available to the public, certain factions
will remain skeptical about the need to implement energy
efcient technologies. A community is made up of a spectrum of
different viewpoints and should be treated as such instead of a
collective whole. People with different worldviews may react
differently to certain economic incentives and scientic infor-
mation. Therefore, an understanding of these variances should
be used to complement the policy measures previously outlined.
In addition, public needs to know all of the costs and benets in
a process very early on. Because of the multitude of factors
involved in the approval of infrastructure development for a
WTE supply chain, citizens may see a plethora of public health/
safety liabilities. A study in Greece found that local attitudes
were surprisingly in favor of an integrated WTE system but cited
reasons for the lack of MSWI in Greece with the absence of
public information, inadequate technical know-how, incomplete
legal framework, inadequate political will, and increased infra-
structure costs (Achillas et al., 2011). Therefore, community
leaders and citizens must be involved in the decision making
process and be prepared to modify strategies in order to come
to a compromise to deal with a community's waste
management.
Investor behavior and mobilization prior to WTE facility
installation can be evaluated by several factors. Two of the most
important factors affecting decision making are awareness
(Afroz et al., 2013) and payback time (Abdelaziz et al., 2011).
Awareness is the amount of information an investor has about a
given technology and the market associated with it (Polanec
et al., 2013). Making stakeholders aware of the costs and ben-
ets of a successful WTE is a tipping point since lack of
awareness can lead to market failure. When service providers do
not see a market with a large amount of viable projects, they
will be reluctant to put forth an investment. This can result in
end users continuing to purchase the same energy products as
before and suppliers interpreting it as a lack of demand for more
efcient products (Sarkar and Singh, 2010). In developing
countries in particular, there is lack of consensus on energy ef-
ciency promotion practices. Similarly, there is a lack of data
from related countries and the prevalence of equipment being
designed for OECD countries with large budgets. Therefore,
awareness should be built through the understanding of objec-
tives, technical knowledge, governance, business models, and
shares of risks vs. rewards among investors and stakeholders
(Hawkey et al., 2013).
Moreover, payback time was correlated to the probability of an
investment being made-a shorter payback time yielded a higher
probability of investment (Abadie et al., 2012). Firms located in
places with the highest GHG emissions in conjunction with strin-
gent environmental regulations were more inclined to invest in
efcient methods of energy supply. Interestingly, a larger number
of recommendations in a preliminary assessment had a negative
inuence on the probability of implementation. An increased
amount of recommendations in an assessment means more work
for stakeholders further down the line. The neglect of these
stakeholders in following through with recommendations could be
interpreted as being a lack of incentives. Meanwhile, rms in areas
with a large amount of GDP attributed to the manufacturing in-
dustry were less likely to invest (Abadie et al., 2012). Successful
industries that have already been established are seldom likely to
retrot their technology just for the sake of environmental
consciousness.
Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
4. Successful lessons for WTE supply chain
Typical examples of a WTE supply chain can be observed in the
ecological industrial parks (Munir et al., 2012), where businesses
cooperate with each other in a community to reduce waste and
pollution through the sharing of resources with the intention of
increasing economic gains and improving environmental quality
(Behera et al., 2012). The desired nal outcome of the WTE supply
chain is a realization of the concept of industrial symbiosis. When
industrial symbiosis is achieved, participating companies of a WTE
supply chain will have reduced their own costs to their businesses
and the natural world by sharing services, information, and in-
dustrial byproducts. Aside from usage of appropriate technology
and sound nancial backing, the success of a WTE supply chain
rides heavily on the people surrounding the project. This will
require strong project leaders who have technical knowledge and
personal investments in their work. It also appears in the shape of
governments providing a sound regulatory framework in order to
foster cooperation between companies. Lastly, a WTE supply chain
needs the support of a well-informed surrounding community.
Several successful lessons regarding the WTE supply chain around
the world were stated as follows:
4.1. Type I waste: green fuel pellets utilized for heating supply
Green fuel pellet, a biomass product made of renewable sub-
stances such as recycled wood waste, is a clean-burning and cost-
effective heating alternative. There are approximately 1,000,000
homes in the U.S. using wood pellets for heating in freestanding
stoves, replace inserts, furnaces and boilers (Hedrick, 2013), which
is ascribed to a sound system of subsidies on renewable energy
development and deployment. Currently, wood pellets are a well-
dened commodity product with standardized quality parame-
ters. It was an easy and inexpensive adaption of existing boilers
from fossil fuels to bio-fuel pellets. In addition, the green fuel pellet
is capable of co-ring with coal in boilers.
In the case of Avedre power station in Denmark, its design was
capable of burning the wood pellets of up to 70% co-combustion.
The moisture content of fuel pellets is substantially lower (e.g.,
4e8%) compared to raw biomass (e.g., 20e60%), resulting in higher
BTU value and easier handling especially in freezing situations
(Hedrick, 2013). In addition, the ultra-supercritical (USC) boiler was
combined with two 50 MW gas turbine, thereby increasing the total
plant efciency to 51% (Burmeister & Wain Energy, 2011).
Furthermore, the high density and uniform shape of fuel pellets can
be easily stored in standard silos, transported in rail cars and/or
delivered in truck containers.
In Taiwan, the central government has adopted CES as a national
policy by introducing numerous regulations to build and supervise
WTE supply chain in the industrial park. For instance, Hwa-In En-
ergy Company, belonged to the I-Long Steelmaking Corp., was
aggressively working on the district energy supply within Yong-An
Industrial Park (Kaohsiung, Taiwan). Fig. 5 shows the material ow
and energy ow analyses for assessing the potency in achieving the
objectives of waste recycling and reuse in Yong-An Industrial Park.
To achieve this goal, the Hwa-In Energy Company is currently
constructing a new business model utilizing the Palm Kernel
Shell as the green fuel pellet in boiler, and serving as a center of the
energy supply system. Three biomass boilers, with a total genera-
tion capacity of 60 ton/h, were utilized to generate high quality
steam with a pressure of 20 kg/cm2. It was expected that the
number of small-scale boilers with low energy efciency and high
pollutant emission would be reduced gradually due to the utiliza-
tion of CHP technologies in the integrated energy supply system.
 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13
Fig. 5. Construction of green supply chain for resource and heating supply center utilizing green fuel pellets.
As a result, the Hwa-In Energy Company can serve as the energy
supply center in the Yong-An Industrial Park. High quality steam
can be provided and delivered to the demand site at a reasonable
price. The amount of steam supplied in this model was estimated to
be 370,000 ton per year, corresponding to a CO2 emission reduction
of 73,000 ton by 2012. By the end of December 2012, a total of nine
supply-demand chains including steam, waste glass mixture,
organic/inorganic sludge, y ash, and nonhazardous organic sol-
vent were achieved in the Yong-An Industrial Park, with a potential
amount of 502,440 tons per year of recycle wastes. With this suc-
cessful model, the amount of recycling wastes such as steam, waste
solvent, y ash, and bottom ash were estimated at 370,110 tons per
year, equivalent to a CO2 emission reduction of 84,000 ton per year.
As a result, the economic benet is estimated to be US$95 million
per year, as shown in Table 1.
4.2. Type II waste: paper and pulping industry wastes utilized for
CHP plant
Fig. 6 presents the WTE supply chain at Hua-Lien County
(Taiwan) in 2013, where Chung Hwa Pulp Corp. (CHPC) is served as
the districted energy center. A total of nine supply-demand chains
including steam (generated from co-generation technology), warm
water, waste heat, hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2), organic and
inorganic sludge, biomass wastes, and secondary treated water
were achieved in the CHPC. The H2 supply chain from CHPC is
connected to the chemical and energy production. For example, the
fuel cell vehicle was utilized for public transportation in Taroko
National Park. In addition, the CO2 generated from the industry was
transported and applied to horticulture and/or chemical industries.
Currently, the CHPC is constructing a business model to utilize the
biomass such as straw residues, driftwood, domestic wastes, and
waste clam as the feedstock for implementing the biorenery
technology in Kraft pulp mills (bio-pulping process). The bio-
renery technology is a sustainable process for converting biomass
into a spectrum of marketable energy and products such as liquid
fuels. It was noted that recycling 1 ton of straw could reduce 0.9 ton
of CO2 emission. In general, 1 ton of straw could produce 0.55 ton of
pulp (equivalent to reducing 0.5 ton of CO2 emission) and 0.325 ton
Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
9
of organic fertilizer (equivalent to reducing 0.4 ton of CO2 emission)
at the same time.
In addition, the waste black liquor from pulping process also
could be utilized for production of dimethyl ether (DME) via the
Chemrec black liquor gasier (BLG), so-called BLG-DME process.
The advantage of BLG-DME process in paper and pulping industry is
that excess process heat can be used at the pulp mill, which ach-
ieves the goal of a sustainable bio-economy to make efcient and
sustainable uses of biological resources. However, the absolute
potential for biofuels via BLG is limited since there is only a very
limited amount of black liquor available (Flink et al., 2007).
Therefore, the so-called poly-generation should be achieved to
meet the sustainable bio-economy, where at a single facility
different manufacturing processes are coupled so that several
products such as heat, electric power, fuel, or raw materials for
chemical industry are created. It suggests that the BLG-DME tech-
nology enables the paper and pulping industry to increase the in-
ternal electricity generation and produce chemicals or fuels
simultaneously.
4.3. Type III waste: animal residues utilized for biogas production
In Denmark, a unique concept of centralized biogas plant have
been executed for many years, which represents an integrated
system of renewable energy production, resource utilization,
organic waste treatment and nutrient recycling and redistribution
(Raven and Gregersen, 2007). On the other hand, in Germany, on-
farm anaerobic digestion is more prevalent where more than 4000
on-farm anaerobic digestion plants operated in 2009 (Wilkinson,
2011). Currently, lack of raw material quality control and analysis
and legislative barriers (e.g., subsidy schemes and energy policies)
are believed to be the main limitations for effective operation of
biogas plant. It was noted that the potential of AD in agriculture
resource such as manure and energy crop is far from being
exploited because merely 4% of the available manure is circulated
through biogas plants (Madsen et al., 2011). Therefore, different
pre-treatment processes such as thermal, mechanical, chemical,
wet oxidation, microwave, ultrasonic are also expected to imple-
ment for enhancing the biodegradability of substrates, thereby
10 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13

Table 1
Performance evaluation of different WTE supply chains for CES from energy, environmental and economic aspects.

Types of waste Conversion tech. Product Energy/environmental/economic benets Comments: key to success

Agriculture waste  Pre-treatment Green fuel pellet  Easily stored and handling in freezing situations  Policy of increasing energy efciency and
(e.g., palm kernel (torrefaction) (wood pellet)  Low moisture content (4e8%) diversication (Demark)
shell)  Granulation  Total plant efciency increases more than 50%  Regulations to build and supervise WTE in
 Pelletization  Easy and inexpensive adaption of existing boilers industrial park (Taiwan)
 Combustion  High quality steam supply (370,000 t/y), CO2 emission  Economical support from government for
(Multi-fuel reduction (73,000 t/y), Economic benet of US$95 building business model (Taiwan)
Boiler) million/y (in the case of Taiwan)
Industrial waste  Black liquor Bio-liquid fuels  Poly-generation (heat, electric power, fuel and  Encouragement of developing the
(e.g., Paper and gasier (DME) raw materials) fuel-efcient vehicles (Europe)
pulping)  Bio-renery  CO2 emission reduction (0.9 t/t-waste)  Implementation of emission trading and
 Reduction of pulp (0.55 t/t-waste) fuel tax (Europe)
 Reduction of organic fertilizer (0.33 t/t-waste)  Promotion Plan of Biomass Energy
Generation (Taiwan)
Animal waste  Pre-treatment Bio-gas  Co-digestion with agriculture wastes, food industries,  Implementation of Feed-in Tariffs (FITs)
(e.g., carcass) (thermal, (CH4, H2, and CO) slaughterhouse waste mechanism (Europe)
mechanical,  Reduction of NOx emission by 1.2 t/y  Integrated with renewable energy
chemical)  Reduction of CO2 emissions by 20 t/y production and nutrient recycling and
 Gasication  Higher value of versatile end products redistribution (Germany)
 Anaerobic  Low costs for syngas conversion process and treating  Landll ban and taxes on organic
digestion wastes and pollution wastes (Sweden)
Municipal solid  Circulate Steam, Electricity,  Overall thermal efciency of 65e85% for boiler  Successful policy of Mandatory Trash
waste (e.g., WWTP Fluidize Bed Refuse Derived  Lower NOx emissions and limits corrosion Sorting Enforcement (Taiwan)
sludge) (CFB) Boiler Fuel (RDF)  Possibility of removing sulfur in simple manners  Implementation of Per Bag Trash
 Co-combustion  Coal consumption reduction by 23,600 t/y Collection Fee Policy (Taiwan)
 Co-generation (in the case of Taiwan)  Policy that targets R&D (USA)
(CHP)  CO2 emission reduction of 27,000 t/y  Subsidies on green energy development
(in the case of Taiwan) and deployment (USA)

Fig. 6. Establishment of WTE Supply Chain in pulping industry wastes utilized for CHP Plant (Modied from CHPC, 2013).

increasing methane yields under similar operating conditions
(Carlsson et al., 2012).
In Sweden, landll ban and taxes have been introduced to
achieve a sustainable waste management for more than ten years,
i.e., ban on sorted burnable waste since 2002, and on organic
wastes since 2005 (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency,
2005). Under the appropriate policy and producer responsibility,
different raw materials such as solid cattle slaughterhouse wastes,
manure, various crops and MSW have been commercially used for

s-Daz
the anaerobic co-digestion in a large-scale biogas plant (Page
et al., 2014) and the use of biogas was as a local fuel for trans-
portation (Amiri et al., 2013). For instance, the generated bio-gas
from co-digestion process, as shown in Fig. 7, can be upgraded to
vehicle quality, i.e., 98% methane at 250 bar (Nordberg, 2013). The
feedstock for co-digestion include agriculture wastes, food in-
dustries (e.g., waste fat, vegetable waste), slaughterhouse waste
(e.g., blood, rumen content and process water), together with ani-
mal manure from local farms. With the implementation of WTE
supply chain in Linko ping biogas plant, the emissions of NOx and
CO2 per bus were found to decrease by 1.2 ton and 20 ton per year.

Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
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 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13 11

ping biogas plant at Germany.

Fig. 7. Co-digestion of animal residues with organic wastes for biogas production in Linko

4.4. Type IV waste: MSW/WWTP utilized as a district energy supply
center
Both MSW and/or wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) can
provide great opportunities for CHP technology. For instance, the
MSW supply chains as district energy supply centers in Taichung
city of Taiwan have been established mainly by two facilities and
companies, i.e., Ho-Li Incinerator and Cheng-Loong Corp, as shown
in Fig. 8. In the Ho-Li Incinerator, the overall heat efciency is 22%
with two heat recovery equipment of a total capacity of 58.9 ton
steam per hour (steam quality: 40 kg/cm2 and 400  C). The heat
generated from the combustion of MSIW was recovered by a heat
exchanger to supply high quality steam for process heating. After
that, the median quality heat in ue gas would drive a gas turbine
#1 to generate additional steam for district cooling (DC) of Tai-
chung City. The exhausted gas would be further utilized by a gas
turbine #2 for hot water supply to the Taichung City. In addition,
under the policy of mandatory trash sorting enforcement
announced by Taichung city, the performance of MSWI in Taichung
city was superior to those of other cities in Taiwan.
On the other hand, the Cheng-Loong CHP plant also serves as the
DES center in Taichung County. The Cheng-Loong CHP possesses
three CHP equipment, i.e., two coal-red boiler and one boiler using
biomass energy, and one CFB boiler, with an overall thermal
efciency of 65e85%. The types of energy and materials supplied
include electricity, steam, hot water, and waste materials. The
process waste has been utilized in biomass energy system to pro-
duce the refuse-derived fuel (RDF), which can be co-combusted in
the CHP boiler with a capacity of 24,000 tons per year. Accordingly,
the coal consumption can be reduced by 23,600 tons per year,
corresponding to a CO2 emission reduction of 23,400 tons per year.
In addition, the organic sludge from the WWTP was co-combusted
in the low-pressure CFB boiler with a capacity of 18,320 tons per
year. The CO2 emission reduction was estimated at 3600 tons per
year.
A good example for WWTP utilized as a district energy supply
center can also be shown in the Back River WWTP in the Balti-
more city of US, where the bio-solids were converted to bio-gas.
The produced bio-gas (e.g., methane) was utilized directly from
its source into cogeneration facility to generate power (3150 KW
electricity generating capacity) and process heat (5500 lbs/
h steam), thereby improving the plant's energy security. With
the successful WWTP supply chain, all power and heat in Back
River WWTP can be utilized on-site, where overall system ef-
ciency can be greater than 55% (Wright, 2008). The CHP facility
and other improvements in Back River WWTP reduced CO2
emission by 12.9 million pounds, and NOx emission by 7.7 million
grams.

Fig. 8. Establishment of green supply chain by MSW incinerator and CHP plant as a district energy supply center.

Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
12 S.-Y. Pan et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e13
4.5. Summary
To eliminate the technical barriers, it requires the comprehen-
sive and integrated strategies which include solutions from the
institutional, regulatory, and nancial aspects. However, some
simple technologies are already available. Those technologies
reduce resource use and improve economic efciency and human
well-being (Maier and Oliveira, 2014). Table 1 summarizes the
different successful lessons of applying WTE techniques for CES
from the energy, environmental and economic aspects. It was noted
that development of WTE supply chain as DES is protable when
the total costs are lower than those for other methods for local
energy production. The costs of heat delivery include infrastructure
construction costs of DES can recuperate its initial capital invest-
ment in a few years through energy savings. The thermal energy
networks are shown to be nancially benecial for densely popu-
lated urban areas, high-density building clusters and industrial
complexes. In addition, connection costs can be minimized by
building a community at the same time that developing a district
energy distribution grid. However, the economical supports (e.g.,
FIT mechanism) and pollution regulations (e.g., emission tax or
trading) from government are the key factors for successful WTE
projects.
5. Conclusions and recommendations
5.1. Conclusions
Recently, the WTE supply chain has been aggressively con-
structed in different industrial parks around the world. The prin-
ciples of building WTE supply chain are based upon the 5R
practices, i.e., reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery (energy), and
reclamation (land). To effectively implement the WTE supply
chain, policy mechanisms should be able to tackle multiple bar-
riers from the aspects of regulation, institution, nance and
technology at once. As a result, the strategies on implementing
WTE supply chain for CES should (1) establish policy and gov-
ernment responsibility, (2) internalize externalities, social accep-
tance and investor mobilization, (3) provide economic incentives
and price supports, and (4) set up comprehensive performance
evaluation program. Along thy way, the well-dened goals and
dissemination of information to all involved stakeholders are also
crucial for success. From the engineering point of view, the WTE
supply chain can be implemented in the form of CHP and CCHP
due to their exibility in terms of thermal energy to electricity
output ratio. For instance, in the case of paper and pulping mill
industry, production of bio-liquid fuels and bio-chemicals from
black liquor and agricultural biomass residues such as straw was
able to provide signicant revenue returned. It was thus
concluded that the WTE supply chain is a viable option to resolve
energy supply, waste management, and greenhouse gas issues
simultaneously because of its established status as a mature
technology, varied waste stream compatibility, modern emission
control measures, and high efciency level.
5.2. Recommendations
To improve the environmental quality and maintain economic
growth, we need to solve the contradictory relationships between
greening and growth, where the solution should be increasing the
energy and resources utilization efciency and the use of renew-
able energies. Eight taskforces including command and control,
economic instruments, information platform, technical assistance,
research and development, public-private partnership, interna-
tional collaboration, and environmental education should be
Please cite this article in press as: Pan, S.-Y., et al., Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy
system: a review, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.124
implemented in order to optimize the WTE supply chain for CES.
Since the limited available land and space, portfolio options of
technologies for WTE supply chain should be carried out from
situation to situation. For instance, co-digestion of organic wastes
can be performed to produce the bio-gas nearby MSWI and WWTP
facilities. In addition, response to adaptation to global climate
change for environmental sustainability, our future green tech-
nology development should be focused on both water for energy
and energy for water, namely water and energy nexus.
Acknowledgment
The authors wish to thank the Bureau of Energy, Ministry of
Economic Affairs (MOEA) of Taiwan (R.O.C.) for the nancial sup-
port under Grant number 102-E0405.
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