Page 68 - Envision 17

Industry Spotlight and Innovation
From Waste to Resource: 2019 in Review
2019 had been a busy and fruitful
year, in terms of leveraging research and development (R&D) and deploying innovations to help Singapore close the waste loop. What lies ahead?
Patrick Pang, Chief Technology O cer, National Environment Agency
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The past year had witnessed several significant milestones for the National Environment Agency,
particularly where waste management was concerned. After all, the year itself had been designated by our Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources as the Year Towards Zero Waste.
During the Committee of Supply debate on 7 March 2019, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Masagos Zulkifli, announced that the NEA had been studying how to turn incineration ash into construction material, instead of landfilling it. This was also the first time that the term “NEWSand” was used to refer to the targeted material, and clearly a nod to the breakthrough that Singapore had achieved earlier with NEWater. Minister Masagos also previewed the inaugural Zero Waste Masterplan and the milestone Resource Sustainability Bill, which were duly released and passed in August and September, respectively.
The marking of the twentieth anniversary of Semakau Landfill, Singapore’s sole operating landfill, provided a fitting end to the year, if not also a timely reminder that only sixteen years remained of its lifespan.
Turning Scarcity into Opportunity through R&D Interleaving, and in support of, these and other NEA imperatives were several key R&D milestones.
Mid-March saw the official opening of a joint research centre between Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Called the NTU Singapore-CEA Alliance for Research in Circular Economy (aptly abbreviated as SCARCE), this centre focuses on R&D towards novel, resource-efficient methods to recover useful materials from electronic and electrical waste.1
The NEA has committed some $12.5 million from the Closing The Waste Loop R&D initiative (see boxed story), to co-fund this $20-million centre with CEA and NTU. Barely a year into its existence, the centre has already achieved several notable results, such as in the successful recovery of lithium from spent lithium ion batteries, as well as garnered industry interest.
In end May, Minister Masagos presided over the official opening of the $40-million Waste-to-Energy Research Facility. With a daily capacity of 11.5 tonnes, this experimental facility takes