Waste-to-Energy in a Destruction Oriented System

Abstract

Energy recovery from waste is often discussed as a way to address environmental pressure, resource inefficiency, and electricity insecurity at the same time. In South Africa, however, the possibility of developing waste to energy, WtE, from healthcare risk waste, HCRW, incineration raises a more complex question. Existing incinerators already perform a necessary treatment function, but they were designed to destroy hazardous waste safely, not to recover energy. This thesis therefore examines whether the surrounding system can support a shift from destruction-oriented incineration toward WtE. The study applies a Technological Innovation Systems, TIS, framework and is based on a qualitative embedded single case study of Averda’s South African HCRW treatment activities. The analysis draws on interviews, site visits, field observations, and secondary documents, including material from the case company, regulators, experts, technology suppliers, and other relevant industry actors. The empirical material was analysed through iterative thematic analysis and subsequently interpreted through TIS structures, functions, and inducement and blocking mechanisms, with attention to the justice implications of the pathway. The findings show that the system contains some conditions that could support WtE development, including existing incineration infrastructure, operational experience, technical knowledge, and policy attention to waste and energy challenges. However, these inducements remain weak. The system is primarily organised around safe destruction, compliance, and treatment continuity rather than energy recovery. WtE development is constrained by weak market formation, unclear electricity offtake conditions, limited experimentation, ageing and manual plant infrastructure, restricted resource mobilisation, and continued dependence on established waste management practices. The thesis concludes that WtE from HCRW incineration in South Africa is technically conceivable but systemically constrained. Under current conditions, it should not be understood as an imminent or scalable electricity generation pathway, but rather as a conditional and site specific energy recovery option within a destruction oriented system.