Urban governance 99
bags are sorted automatically by optical sensors: plastic waste goes to finesorting and recycling in Germany, food waste goes to the biogas plant in Nes
in Romerike (outside of Oslo) and residual waste is incinerated in an energy
recovery process after metal has been sorted out and removed. The ash residuals are sent to a landfill. The municipality plans to develop a pilot for carbon
capture and storage at the incineration plant. The biogas plant at Nes was
opened in 2013. It has the capacity to process 50,000 tonnes of food
waste annually. The biogas is upgraded to liquid biogas (LBG) in a process
that extracts CO 2 and reduces the volume of the biogas. The municipal
biogas plant also produces bio- residuals, which are sold to neighbouring
farmers as fertiliser. The produced LBG is used for the public transport system
of Oslo.
In Oslo, the collection and processing of waste is divided between the
public and private sectors respectively. Because of its corporate legal structure,
EGE in Oslo cannot easily buy or process waste from the private sector and is
instead restricted to processing household waste from the municipality of
Oslo. Meanwhile, the public biogas plant at Nes in Romerike runs below
capacity, and only 40% of organic household waste is treated there. Currently, the municipality has no responsibility for food waste from private businesses. This restriction makes it difficult to reduce the operating costs of the
biogas plant. However, ongoing experiments with adding manure as an additional feedstock might improve the cost efficiency of the Nes biogas plant.
In parallel to the public waste collection and processing system in Oslo,
the private sector has developed its own system for waste management. Over
the last ten years, a large private actor, ASKO, has specialised in processing
food waste from private businesses. ASKO is the wholesale and logistics business partner of one of Norway’s largest grocery wholesaling groups, NorgesGruppen, which owns a number of grocery stores, restaurants, kiosks,
gasoline stations and hotels. The reuse and recycling element of the logistics
business includes the collection of food for redistribution by a charity organisation to reduce food loss (Matsentralen), the return of bottles and boxes,
cardboard and paper recycling, plastic recycling and the reuse of different
types of containers, etc. ASKO’s trucks deliver food to retailers and bring
their sorted waste products back for recycling on the return trip. This practice
avoids the driving of empty trucks and reduces fuel costs and emissions. The
collected waste streams are material- recycled: food waste as biogas, plastic
waste as plastic resources, cardboard and paper for paper recycling, etc. Plastic
waste is delivered to Folldal Gjenvinning, which produces a recycled interims
product, a plastic granulate, which is used as a resource in NorgesGruppen’s
plastic bag production. The sorting of the plastic waste from private businesses is more fine- grained than the public household plastic waste, where
different types of plastic are mixed, which results in a lower quality of the
recycled interims product (see Table 5.1).
The introduction of the recycling system in NorgesGruppen started in
grocery stores, lasting from 2004 to 2009, with the ambition of learning the
bags are sorted automatically by optical sensors: plastic waste goes to finesorting and recycling in Germany, food waste goes to the biogas plant in Nes
in Romerike (outside of Oslo) and residual waste is incinerated in an energy
recovery process after metal has been sorted out and removed. The ash residuals are sent to a landfill. The municipality plans to develop a pilot for carbon
capture and storage at the incineration plant. The biogas plant at Nes was
opened in 2013. It has the capacity to process 50,000 tonnes of food
waste annually. The biogas is upgraded to liquid biogas (LBG) in a process
that extracts CO 2 and reduces the volume of the biogas. The municipal
biogas plant also produces bio- residuals, which are sold to neighbouring
farmers as fertiliser. The produced LBG is used for the public transport system
of Oslo.
In Oslo, the collection and processing of waste is divided between the
public and private sectors respectively. Because of its corporate legal structure,
EGE in Oslo cannot easily buy or process waste from the private sector and is
instead restricted to processing household waste from the municipality of
Oslo. Meanwhile, the public biogas plant at Nes in Romerike runs below
capacity, and only 40% of organic household waste is treated there. Currently, the municipality has no responsibility for food waste from private businesses. This restriction makes it difficult to reduce the operating costs of the
biogas plant. However, ongoing experiments with adding manure as an additional feedstock might improve the cost efficiency of the Nes biogas plant.
In parallel to the public waste collection and processing system in Oslo,
the private sector has developed its own system for waste management. Over
the last ten years, a large private actor, ASKO, has specialised in processing
food waste from private businesses. ASKO is the wholesale and logistics business partner of one of Norway’s largest grocery wholesaling groups, NorgesGruppen, which owns a number of grocery stores, restaurants, kiosks,
gasoline stations and hotels. The reuse and recycling element of the logistics
business includes the collection of food for redistribution by a charity organisation to reduce food loss (Matsentralen), the return of bottles and boxes,
cardboard and paper recycling, plastic recycling and the reuse of different
types of containers, etc. ASKO’s trucks deliver food to retailers and bring
their sorted waste products back for recycling on the return trip. This practice
avoids the driving of empty trucks and reduces fuel costs and emissions. The
collected waste streams are material- recycled: food waste as biogas, plastic
waste as plastic resources, cardboard and paper for paper recycling, etc. Plastic
waste is delivered to Folldal Gjenvinning, which produces a recycled interims
product, a plastic granulate, which is used as a resource in NorgesGruppen’s
plastic bag production. The sorting of the plastic waste from private businesses is more fine- grained than the public household plastic waste, where
different types of plastic are mixed, which results in a lower quality of the
recycled interims product (see Table 5.1).
The introduction of the recycling system in NorgesGruppen started in
grocery stores, lasting from 2004 to 2009, with the ambition of learning the