Title: Municipal Waste Incineration Author: Josh Moninghoff Executive Summary: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the

process of municipal waste incineration used as a means to create efficient energy from everyday solid waste generation. Burning waste may be a less common topic in the conversation of renewable energy, but recapturing energy from typical everyday waste can help countries become more energy independent and environmentally friendly. While not as popular in the United States, many countries have begun to incinerate municipal waste to create energy and reduce landfill area. This document will explore how the use of waste incineration has allowed many countries to gain energy dependence and become more environmentally conscious. The progressing technologies of the process to maximize efficiency and minimize the environmental footprint will also be covered in this paper. Waste incineration has received its fair share of criticisms throughout its immergence as a method of renewable energy; these criticisms will be discussed and compared to the methods many advantages. Waste incineration continues to progress with time like any other new technology would do. As progression continues the science has become more finely tuned, eliminating the majority of the previous concerns critics had of waste incineration. One of the major issues with the incineration of municipal solid waste is the harmful ashes and residues produced. Within the past several years many countries such as Denmark and the United Kingdom have devised effective ways to monitor and suppress the pollutants in the ash and residues produced as a result of the incineration of waste. These methods and issues will be further discussed and researched in this document to better understand the measures that have been taken to ensure that all resulting pollutants are correctly monitored and disposed. This report will assess the current waste incineration technologies as applied to various nations that have begun to utilize the method. Whether or not developing countries should invest in the technology will be discussed from both an economic and environmental point of view.

Table of Contents: Introduction Content Conclusion References 1 2 9 11

INTRODUCTION: Environmentalists, scientists, and politicians have discussed the issue of waste incineration on a world stage for the past couple of decades. Waste incineration is a method of renewable energy that serves two main purposes for any country that decides to use it. The first purpose of incinerating waste is to reduce the volume created by the same waste had it not been burned and therefore dumped into a landfill. Typically by incinerating the basic municipal solid waste, volume can be decreased by up to 95 percent. So, if the waste is incinerated it takes up much less space compared to the alternative of dumping the waste in a landfill. This fact makes waste incineration particularly attractive to countries or cities that have issues with finding the room to store trash in a landfill. Most cities in the United States for example will transport their trash to the surrounding rural regions that have sufficient room for a landfill. This increases fuel used for transport and stresses certain rural areas, which will be discussed further in the following paper. Then comes the second, possibly most important, reason for incinerating municipal waste. The energy incineration creates. The topic of renewable energy has been flooding our newspapers and magazines for decades. As the population of the world increases and the amount of natural resources decreases, scientists and engineers are scrambling for ways to efficiently create energy. This issue seems to be specifically important to people in the United States when fuel prices rise and everything seems to become more expensive. Whether it is the cost of filling your vehicles gas tank or heating your home for a winter. Although, what the average US fails to realize is that some countries are almost completely energy dependent. So in that instance even turning on a light bulb or charging a cell phone become extremely expensive. Take a country like Taiwan, who at one point was importing up to 99 percent of its energy. They have since been investing in waste incineration technology to gain more energy independence (Tsai, 2010). So for countries that are striving to become for self-sustainable waste incineration seems to be a good place to start.

Municipal waste incineration is a process that at its first birth was very enticing to many countries. Although, like anything else it had its fair share of issues and problems. At first many environmentalists disregarded the technology as a renewable energy method, because of the air pollutants released by the burning of the trash and the harmful ash that was created. As time has progressed since the introduction of the technology, waste incineration has been studied and tested to help placate the initial environmental issues. As technology progresses municipal waste incineration will allow many developed and developing countries to increase their use of renewable energy and reduce their environmental impact. With proper application municipal waste incineration systems can play a major role in the future of renewable energy. At a time where countries are struggling to develop due to lack of natural resources, renewable energy such as waste incineration can help them provide sufficient energy for their people. CONTENT: The United States has had its ups and downs in the progression of renewable energy. In the 1970s the United States had significant progression in renewable energy due to an embargo with many Middle Eastern countries, which limited the countrys oil supply forcing the exploration into alternative energies. When the 1980s came around the Middle Eastern oil was once again plentiful, so interest in renewable energy decreased. About two decades ago the United States began to once again place a heavy value on finding renewable energy. One of the rising technologies at the time was municipal waste incineration. At this point in time municipal waste incineration was a very two sided issue in the United States, especially among the environmental groups. Many of the initial concerns were rooted in the pollutants released from burning the trash. It was thought at the time that incinerating trash released many toxic organic chemicals that couldnt be filtered out before entering the atmosphere. The other major issue was dealing with the ash created from incineration. If this ash was not properly disposed of, it could potentially harm the environment. (Hardy, 1991). With intense opposition came strong support especially from the United States Department of Energy, who monitored the construction and use of several incineration plants across the country. Most of the incineration plants being built in the United States at the time were in larger cities where landfill space was diminishing, so an alternative had to be found.

These early incinerators worked on the same principle that many of the modern systems work upon. Essentially the incinerator is used to create steam, which then spins a turbine creating usable energy. As many European countries continued to build incinerators during the 1990s, the United States backed away from the technology due to environmental concern (Wolpert, 1994). It wasnt until the turn of the century, the year 2000, that interest began to peak once again. By this time many European countries proved the effectiveness of the systems, and were able to greatly reduce the environmental impact. When the United States steered away from incineration, more investment was made to methane capturing systems in existing landfills. This technology was less of a risk and initially cost less due to its application to already existing landfills. Although, the methane capturing technologies in the United States proved to be less effective than planned which also put more focus on the incineration plants. A recent article released by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) compared the energy and pollutant generation of the landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE), the waste incineration to energy (WTE), and the standard coal burning power plant. The efficiency of the waste incineration to energy (WTE) was quite impressive when compared the landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE) systems. For the same amount of the municipal solid waste, the WTE generated ten times the amount of electricity compared to the LFGTE. Even more shocking than the energy efficiency was the comparison of various emissions testing of the WTE, LFGTE, and the coal burning plants. The coal power plant averaged a sulfur oxide production of 6900 g/ (MW h), the WTE ranged from 140 to 730 g/(MW h), and the LFGTE ranged from 430 to 900 g/ (MW h). When it came to nitrogen oxide emissions the coal burning plants averaged 3700 g/ (MW h), the LFGTE ranged from 2100 to 3000 g/ (MW h), and the WTE ranged from 810 g/ (Mw h). Not to mention the carbon dioxide emissions were ten times lower for the WTE compared to coal burning power plants. This type of emission testing has pushed the United States to further consider investment in the waste incineration systems. Even compared to the commonly used LFGTE, the WTE produces ten times more energy from the same amount of trash and still results in fewer emissions. (Decarolis,2008) These statistics make it evident that the United States may have made a wrong decision in the early nineties when they focused on landfill gas recovery. As of 1990, 73 percent of energy from waste in the United States was from incineration, while only 8 percent was from landfill

gas recovery (Wolpert, 1994). Over those next ten years those numbers drastically changed due to a focus on landfill gas recovery, which according to recent articles done by the EPA is less efficient than the new incineration technology. During the time that the United States had turned its focus away from waste incineration, other countries began to invest in various technologies leading to a progression in the industry. Waste incineration proved to be an effective waste disposal alternative for many countries searching for new ways to harvest energy. Take for example the developing country of Taiwan. Amidst a great progression of industry and economic growth, the energy dependent country of Taiwan needed a method of creating energy. From 1988 to 2008 the total energy consumption of Taiwan increased at an average 4.76 percent every year (Tsai, 2010). This spike in energy consumption is du to the industrial and economical growth of the nation. Due to its limited natural resources and minimal space for landfills, Taiwan began to incinerate its municipal solid waste and turn it into usable energy. Taiwans efforts to incinerate waste for energy were backed by government subsidies during the 1990s, which allowed for a large number of incinerators to be built. To ensure the environmental safety of the incineration process, the Taiwanese government started regulation at the roots of the system. The government passed a Waste Disposal Act to help regulate what types of trash were entering the facilities. They wanted to ensure that the waste entering the systems was combustible as opposed to recyclable. If the material was recyclable the government wanted to make sure that the recyclables made it to the proper facilities. This action allowed for the incinerators to be much more efficient, because only the combustible materials were entering the facilities. Within ten years of the laws passing the facilities were maximizing their potential. In 2008 almost 56% of generated municipal waste was being sent to incineration facilities. In this same year 42% of municipal waste was being recycled, and only about 2% of the waste was entering designated landfills (Tsai, 2010). With 56% of the municipal solid waste being burned, Taiwan has been able to create enough energy to sell it to the countries private companies at a reasonable cost. The rise in waste incinerators has supplied the country with a much greater ability to produce energy. Taiwan is continuing to progress by enhancing the post combustion technologies to lessen the amount of methane and carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

The post combustion technologies are a main part of creating a better waste incineration system. Other countries, specifically Denmark, have focused their efforts on dealing with both the air from post combustion and the residue or ash left behind as a result of incineration. The main concerns of the gases produced are the effect of global warming by greenhouse gases released by the incineration. While the incineration may produce greenhouse gases, with the correct technology it is able to produce energy with less emission than alternative methods such a coal burning plant. Most modern systems have totally eliminated any emissions of methane so the main focus is to minimize the carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide production. These emissions can be broken down into two main categories, direct and indirect emissions (Astrup, 2009). The direct emissions account for the operation of the incineration facility. The indirect emissions account for any emissions resulting from activities off site of the facility. This can include construction of the site or the disposal of the resulting residues. With modern systems the correct disposal of the residue has resulted in a major decline in indirect emissions especially in terms of the carbon dioxide. The direct emissions account for a large part of the carbon dioxide production. These emissions are mainly linked to the combustion of fuel oil, natural gas, and diesel fuel needed to power the incineration facility. This part of the incineration will be a struggle to change due to most machinery and operating equipment being run by these fuels. So in some sense these emissions are unavoidable, in the sense of incineration technology. It wouldnt be until a cleaner fuel or alternative fuel is developed that carbon dioxide emissions could become less of a factor. Nitrous oxide emissions on the other hand can be more effectively decreased by improving the technology of the incinerator. More modern technologies have decreased the range from 5-100 g/tonne to 8-18 g/tonne (Astrup, 2009). As previously mentioned, there are various ways throughout the progression of the incinerator that the pollution has been dealt with. Many of the regulatory processes depend of the specific laws set by local and federal governments. Therefore some countries are more progressive in terms of regulation and even utilizing the ash and pollutants. In certain situations residues are being recycled and used in construction materials. The reuse of residue in construction materials is a concept that causes some concern due to the exposure of the residue to groundwater and soil. To help reduce the concern of leaching of bottom ash in construction applications, pre treatment of the ash can be performed. One of the most common methods is to simply age the bottom ash for a couple of months to remove certain contaminants that will

diminish over time (Sloot, 2000). When this method is not sufficient, the bottom ash may have to be washed to remove certain salts. These methods depend on the composition of the bottom ash, which varies between types of incinerators and the materials being burned. Apart from bottom ash is the more volatile fly ash, which contributes to air pollution. The most pressing concern with fly ash is the content of harmful soluble salts. These salts are treated in three main ways. The treatment methods include thermal treatment, stabilization, and separation (Sloot, 2000). These methods are three broad categories; within the methods there are many more specific options and processes for treatment. Many of the treatment options are based on the principles of efficiency and economic feasibility. While some options many be extremely effective on a small testing scale, they may not be economically feasible for an incineration facility to apply at a large scale. While treatment after incineration is a main aspect of the environmental process, it is equally important to analyze the upstream of the process. In this instance upstream refers to what is entering the incinerator. The input of waste into the incinerator is important to help minimize the amount of pollutant the incinerator will produce. The result depends essentially on the chemical characteristics of the input. When considering input it is important to take into consideration not only the pollutant characteristics it will produce, but also how the input will effect the leaching behavior of the residue. This is especially important for reuse of the residue in construction applications where leaching of contaminants into the groundwater is a major concern. It is noted through various studies that elements such as Na, Cl, Br, K, and Mo can pose a threat to the characteristics of the residue (Sloot, 2000). In the same respect most of these elements can be easily treated after incineration by a simple washing of the residue. Apart from salts, other materials such as metals arent as important in terms of environmental impact, but they may affect other aspects of the incinerator such as the efficiency or combustion properties. Apart from the typical treatment processes explained above some studies have been done in the past years to try and treat both the fly ash and bottom ash simultaneously. The cotreatments of bottom ash and fly ash results in a product that can be recycled and used as construction materials as long as certain criteria are met. The first part of this process involves stabilizing the fly ash by washing the ash with a solution made up primarily of iron sulfate. This solution removes the majority of the harmful salts in the residue. The downside of this process is the formation of iron oxides, which is where the thermal treatment begins. This iron oxide

solution is then mixed with the bottom ash from the incinerator and heated at about 900 degrees Celsius. (Sorensen, 2000) In the study at hand the mixture was a 9 to 1 ratio of bottom ash to iron oxide solution. This mixture was then heated for 45 minutes at 900 degrees Celsius, as stated above. In combining the residues and treating them as one, the study showed that the leachate result was similar to the bottom ash being treated by itself. Therefore adding in the fly ash residue didnt necessarily enhance the results of the treatment process it did allow for the two to be treated together without any harmful results. So, the co-treated residue could still be used as an aggregate in construction materials. Some facilities rather than reuse or recycle the residues simply transport the residues to a landfill for disposal. In this instance the purpose is to ensure that the residue does not create any short term or long term negative effects on the environment. This method of disposal is heavily reliant on the proper design of the landfill to prevent any harmful effects. One must take into consideration the leaching of inorganic salts and metals when disposing of the residues in a landfill (Sabbas, 2001). There is also concern in the harmful gases that the residues may produce over time. Overall, this is a method that has to be intensely regulated to make sure that the residues are being disposed of in the correct landfills. A couple countries in Europe are attempting to regulate this process so the residues can be disposed of the specially designed landfills. While this does pose quite a risk if not done correctly, it can be a viable disposal option. Other alternative technologies have risen in recent years, including a thermal technology that converts the fly ash residue into a glass or ceramic, which entraps the harmful metals (Rani, 2008). CONCLUSION: The issue of municipal waste incineration will continually be debated and researched as a source of renewable energy. In many instances waste incineration has already proven effective and environmentally friendly. As the technology increases the process will only become more fine tuned and efficient. This method of waste disposal will become even more prevalent as time passes. With an increase in world population cities are becoming more crowded, therefore space for landfills will be minimal. The incineration of waste provides a clear solution for a city facing a similar problem due to its significant decrease in waste volume compared to typical disposal

(National Research Council, 2001). Many countries have already been able to enhance their incineration systems to gain energy independence and reduce the amount of trash going into their landfills. A maximizing effort between waste incineration and proper recycling of non combustible materials can lead to a self sustainable energy source for smaller energy dependent countries. This type of effort was evident in the example of Taiwan, a country that was almost entirely energy dependent. With proper government subsidizing and regulation Taiwan was able to incorporate a waste incineration system so that only 2 percent of their waste was being sent to landfills. The rest was being burned for energy or properly recycled. This is a perfect example of how a developing industrial nation can harness their own energy as they continue to grow economically. Overall municipal solid waste incineration will continue to progress as time goes on. Many more developing countries will see the benefits of investing in such systems from an energy point of view and a spatial point of view as well. While the United States does not see any pressing need to change its reliance on landfills, eventually the benefits of the renewable energy will become more attractive compared to the current landfill systems. As the technology progresses the systems will only become more efficient giving countries energy independence and a smaller environmental impact.

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