Saving tomorrow's cities
ensure that our future is clean, resilient
and prosperous?
The planet is home to more than 13,000 densely populated urban centers—almost double what existed four decades ago. Until recently, that number was expected to grow exponentially. But when covid-19 began to spread across the globe, once bustling cities fell quiet as many sheltered in place or dispersed to more suburban areas to avoid the spread of disease.
While the devastating effects of this global health emergency cannot be understated, an interesting trend must be noted. During the months of March and April, as infections surged across the world, daily global emissions decreased by an unprecedented 17 percent. Now, as we move into a post-pandemic world and return to our economic hubs, we’re presented with a unique opportunity to learn from the past few months. Emissions are expected to rise again as we return to “business as usual,” but perhaps we can rethink urban life, building a cleaner and more resilient ecosystem for tomorrow.
Despite this tumultuous year, cities will once again become home to most of the earth’s population. “People move to cities because of the opportunities there,” says Alex Shermansong, the CEO of Civic Consulting USA, which helps companies understand cities and enter new markets. “Cities offer economic activity, jobs and culture. And in crises, the density of cities brings stronger social ties and extra infrastructure, which can make communities more resilient.”
But as we’ve seen with the rise and fall of emissions during covid-19, there is a flip side to urbanization—the environmental and public health impacts that come along with cramming people into one place. Conversion of natural lands for human use damages ecosystems and contaminates water sources. Manufacturing, transportation and commercial and residential buildings generate detrimental greenhouse gasses and air pollution. In fact, cities are responsible for 70% of the world’s carbon dioxide.
expected to increase by
Growing populations with higher wealth take a toll on water supplies, consume more and, in turn, produce more trash. And urban waste doesn’t just affect cities. By 2050, global waste is expected to increase by 70% to 3.4 billion tonnes—which is then disproportionately dumped or burned in vulnerable, low-income countries. This is also not sustainable from an economic standpoint. Waste management is a huge burden on municipal budgets. Annual global costs are expected to increase from $205 billion to $375 billion.
Fortunately, Shermansong says, municipalities all around the world are waking up to the critical need to find solutions to their big environmental problems, especially as they look to reopen. “The world’s view of how cities should operate has changed,” he says. “More places are putting greater emphasis on how to improve them for the future. They’re thinking about how to use space more efficiently and how to use technology to decrease their environmental footprint.” And it’s that new technology that may enable us to mitigate the growing threat of urban waste by actually utilizing the waste itself.
The world's view of how cities should operate has changed. ”
Addressing the waste problem
Waste generation is growing faster than any other pollutant—on average, each person on Earth produces more than three pounds (about 1.4 kg) of garbage every day—and management of that trash is one of the critical services every urban area must provide.
Municipalities are getting a hand from businesses to help them achieve these ambitious goals. Many are investing in ways to dramatically reduce or innovate the packaging they put their goods in.
Waste to bio-oil
Drag the waste into the
circle to see how much
bio-oil can be produced
with Eni’s waste-to-fuel
technology.
In Italy, energy company Eni is piloting a new waste-to-fuel system that converts household organic waste into bio-oil and water. Its pilot plant at the biorefinery in Gela, a Sicilian city, is currently turning 1,500 pounds (almost 700kg) of garbage daily into 19 gallons of bio-oil. Initial results show that the process can recover 85 percent of the energy locked within the waste as biofuel.
Eni has high hopes for scaling its waste-to-fuel technology, particularly as we rebuild and revitalize our urban centers. The company intends to build its first industrial-sized plant near Venice. When it’s operational by 2023, the plant will take up to 150,000 tons of organic waste—what about 1.5 million residents generate—from Venetian homes and businesses every year. If scaled, the technology can produce the equivalent of 6 million barrels of crude oil per year— diverting 11 million tons of biodegradable materials from the country’s cities that could otherwise end up in landfills. It also has the potential to minimize water withdrawal from the environment by recovering up to 90 percent of the water contained in organic waste and repurposing it for industrial re-use.
Waste-to-fuel technology allows organic urban waste to be converted almost entirely into
water and bio-oil.”
“In Italy right now, many regions need to send organic waste by truck to reach distant treatment plants, with high financial and pollution costs,” says Roberto Marchini, Head of Circular Economy & Business Services at Eni Rewind, which is developing the system. “Compared to other processes, waste-to-fuel technology allows organic urban waste to be converted almost entirely into water and bio-oil while avoiding byproducts like compost, which is increasingly difficult to market.”
Looking ahead
Environmental initiatives can quickly offer significant benefits when they scale up. If Eni deploys its technology across Italy, for instance, the waste-to-fuel program would help Italian cities reduce their overall carbon dioxide and methane emissions.
But, according to Marchini, it’s not just public health and the environment that stand to gain; it’s also corporate strategies for energy transition. The energy company sees a promising business case for deploying projects like waste-to-fuel in cities’ industrial sectors.
“With this technology, we can recreate—in a few hours—a sustainable equivalent to the crude oil it took nature millions of years to produce,” Marchini says. “That’s a big reason why this project fits into Italy’s—and Eni’s—circular economy strategy. We’re diverting garbage to produce renewable energy for transport sectors.”
And Shermansong says all sides—businesses, investors, cities and the citizens who live there—can reap benefits by improving sustainability. He points to a wide swath of opportunities that work together to bring down pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions, decrease the volume of waste going to landfills and incinerators, and increase operational efficiency, all while improving residents’ quality of life. Among those he thinks are the most promising beyond waste-to-power technologies: urban indoor farms and micromanufacturing that can cut long environmentally destructive supply chains.
Fortunately, we’ve only just started scratching the surface of solving problems with better technology.”
“There’s a lot of danger in cities not thinking smart about how they operate—from severe health risks to property loss because of climate change and population declines,” Shermansong says. “Fortunately, we’ve only just started scratching the surface of solving problems with better technology. With new tools, every element of how we manage cities is starting to change.” As we rebuild for tomorrow, initiatives that take this into consideration will guarantee a better and cleaner future.