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What
is Incineration?
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Burning
Garbage, to make it "disappear" has always appeared
to be an attractive solution to the problem of waste. With increasingly
consumptive lifestyles, and a burgeoning population, more garbage
is being created per capita than ever before. Industrial, municipal
and medical wastes have been increasing both in their complexity
as well in their toxicity. Very often the component of our waste
are unknown except to an expert, and those innocuous looking products
can posses toxic chemicals, metals and other pollutant precursors.
A
magic wand that can make all this vanish into thin air is a tempting
but utopian concept. A technology such as incineration that makes
such promises has increasingly come under critical scrutiny especially
during the past decade, and in fact actually creates more pollution
than it takes away.
The
technology of the incineration of waste has undergone many advances
in the past decades. From simple kilns, today's modern incinerators
can be equipped with very sophisticated pollution control equipment,
and be designed for specific waste streams such as municipal solid
waste, hospital waste, industrial waste, or hazardous waste.
However,
owing to the basic process of burning, it has inherent problems
and these get magnified manifold when the process is not carried
out as per recommended standards. But even where standards are
strictly maintained, production of heavy metals, dioxins and furans
by incinerators is inevitable. Advocates of this technology, chiefly
the industry, cite the common, but increasingly questioned, list
of arguments to market it to waste authorities worldwide.
Incinerators
do not make waste disappear: they reduce it to ash and to air
emissions, both potentially hazardous. Waste is hence converted
to another form of pollution, more difficult to control and even
more toxic. Besides, there are numerous problems with regulating
incinerator performance, which also have direct polluting environmental
impacts besides affecting human health.
By
EU definition, "incineration
plant" means any stationary or mobile technical
unit and equipment dedicated to the thermal treatment of wastes
with or without recovery of the combustion heat generated.
This includes the incineration by oxidation of waste as well
as other thermal treatment processes such as pyrolysis, gasification
or plasma processes in so far as the substances resulting from
the treatment are subsequently incinerated.
This definition covers the site and the entire incineration plant
including all incineration lines, waste reception, storage, on
site pretreatment facilities, waste-fuel and air-supply systems,
boiler, facilities for the treatment of exhaust gases, on-site
facilities for treatment or storage of residues and waste water,
stack, devices and systems for controlling incineration operations,
recording and monitoring incineration conditions;
Bharati
Chatuverdi and Ravi Agarwal, "No fire without Smoke: A Critical
Look at Municipal and Hazardous Waste Incineration, Shristi, 1995.
Directive 2000/76/EC of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 4 December 2000 on the incineration of waste
Official Journal L 332 , 28/12/2000 P. 0091
The Incineration
Process
Incineration
is a process of fast exothermic oxidation. In the case of solid
waste a few processes can take place, like pre-heating, drying,
degassing, ignition, incineration and, possibly, post-combustion
of insufficiently burnt incineration products. Three factors are
most important for the incineration process, so called "three
T's", namely: time during which waste remains in the combustion
chamber, temperature of incineration and turbulence of air and
gasses in the combustion chamber.
100
- 250 °C — drying, physical separation of water and
carbon dioxide, separation of sulphur compounds begins;
340
- 380 °C — decomposition of aliphatic compounds, separation
of methane and other gas hydrocarbons begins, low-temperature
oven gas is enriched with carbon compounds;
400
°C — decomposition of organic acids and organic nitrogen
compounds;
500
- 600 °C — bituminous substance changes into oil or
primary tar;
~ 700 °C — solid fuel changes into gas fuel; the gasification
is accompanied by incineration;
700
- 980 °C — post-combustion of solid residue and gas
products of incomplete combustion.
Pawel
Gluszynski, Western Pyromania Moves East, Waste Prevention Association
History
The
idea of destroying waste through incineration in appliances designed
exclusively for that purpose appeared in Europe in the second
half of 19th century. It may have been inspired by fascination
with power producing steam engines. Production of steam was one
of the main reasons for building incinerators. Among other motives
were the necessity of waste "bacteriologic sterilisation"
to prevent spreading of diseases as well as quick disposal of
the increasing amount of waste resulting from rapid industrialisation
and development of cities.
The
first incinerator was built in Paddington, England, in 1870. It
did not work long though as waste processed in it had too large
content of water and ash. In spite of attempts to burn carbon-enriched
waste, the plant was not able to produce the planned amount of
steam, and thus also energy, so it could not fulfil its main purpose.
Moreover, people living in the vicinity of the incinerator, poisoned
with black stinking smoke, protested against the plant.
Though
the first incinerator appeared to be a failure, the technology
itself began to be very popular in Great Britain. Till the beginning
of our century, over 210 plants were built, 14 of which in London.
One of the longest-working incinerators was built in Manchester
in 1876 and closed down in 1903. In 1893 the construction of the
first incinerator on the Continent, in Hamburg, was started. Ten
years later appeared others in Denmark (Frederiksberg, 1903),
Sweden (Stockholm-Lövsta, 1906), Belgium (Brussels), and
in Switzerland (Zürich).
In
the same time first incinerators were built in the Middle Eastern
Europe, in Czech (Brno, 1905) and in Poland (Warsaw, 1906). An
installation in Warsaw functioned for a considerably long time,
that is until it was destroyed by military operations in 1939.
The
region of the Middle Eastern Europe quickly reached the "standards"
of the rest of the world. However, there had been a longer tradition
of environmental friendly waste management. The first in Europe
waste segregating and recycling plant was constructed in Budapest,
in 1883.
About
1900 in Vienna, Stuttgart and Paris pyrolysis installations for
production of methane were constructed. The heat generated by
combusting of the methane was to be used for steam production.
However, impossibility to obtain gas of a stable composition and
large amounts of unburned residue, up to 63% of the input waste,
were reasons for economic collapse of the plant.
In
the 80's of the 19th century the incinerators spread from Europe
to reach the USA. In 1885-1908 there were 180 stationary and mobile
incinerators in operation, burning waste collected indirectly
from streets. In 1909 most of them (102) were closed down because
of construction failures. The incinerators adjusted to the European
conditions appeared to be unsuitable for incinerating waste of
composition typical for the contemporary USA in that time.
At
the beginning of the 20th century the European incinerators were
also closed down because of considerably lower costs and higher
efficiency of using other energy sources, like coal, gas or oil,
instead of waste.
Problems
occurring in the first incinerators did not result in giving up
this method of waste destruction. New designs were introduced,
the combustion temperature was raised, the chimneys were built
higher in order to disperse the pollution better. In the 30's
the essentials of the technology were constituted for the plants,
and they have prevailed to our times.
In
the years between the two World Wars and soon after the Second
World War, several hundred incinerators were built all around
the world; only in the USA there were about 700 of them. The popularity
of waste burning decreased at the beginning of the 50's because
incineration was superseded by a cheaper method, that is waste
dumping.
However,
the recession did not last long. At the beginning of the 70's
an idea of massive incineration of waste was widely promoted,
mainly in Europe. The were a few reasons for the phenomenon. First
of all, the content and amount of waste radically changed. Formerly,
the main components of waste were ash and slag from domestic stoves
as well as organic substances. Now more paper, cardboard and plastic
waste appeared, which was caused by the increase in package production,
especially of disposable containers. Decreasing amount of ash
and slag resulted from appearing of central heating in towns.
Consequently, the waste energy value raised and the incineration
process became more efficient. More energy could be obtained while
less residue remained. For advocates of incinerators this was
an argument in favour of "utilisation of waste as an energy
source" and including the plants into the town heating systems.
Additionally, the energy crisis was a reason for utilising the
"waste fuel" and reducing consumption of conventional
fuels, namely coal and petroleum.
Incineration
was to solve more and more apparent problems caused by toxic waste
not only coming from manufacturing processes but also contained
in the municipal waste. This attitude was a consequence of the
policy prevailing at that time, focused mainly on pollution control
rather than on the prevention. It was assumed that the environment
is capable to accept certain amount of toxic substances without
side effects.
The
above factors as well as a conviction that the incineration technology
is fully developed resulted in the common belief that incinerators
would, in future, supersede other methods of waste management,
first of all - waste dumps.
In
fact, most of the incinerators constructed then were prototypes,
still lacking sufficient final solutions. Many of them were just
boilers designed for coal, not waste, burning.
In
the same time, in the 70's, it was planned to widely introduce
toxic waste incineration at sea. Ships designed exclusively for
that purpose were to destroy chlorinated waste, mainly the chlorinated
organic compounds, one of the most poisonous substances known
to the man. The first ship of this type was Mathias I, since 1969
belonging to Germany. Within twenty years eight such ships were
built; three of them were in operation up to 1991. The exact amount
of waste incinerated by them is unknown. The last accessible statistics
date from 1985, when 105,709 tonnes of chlorinated waste from
10 countries of the Western Europe was incinerated at the North
Sea.
From
the very start there were serious problems with operating and
controlling the ship-incinerators. In the consequence they were
forbidden in the USA as well as in the Mediterranean and Baltic
countries. Finally, at the Conference of the Ministers of the
North Sea Countries, a resolution was passed banning waste incineration
at sea since 31st December 1994.
As
far as incinerators for municipal waste are concerned, the situation
in the USA was slightly different. 364 plants were functioning
there since 1969. In 1970 new regulations were issued considering
protection against the air pollution, called Clean Air Act. More
strict law resulted in shutdown of most of the incinerators. In
1979 only 64 incinerator worked.
However,
unlike in the Western Europe where in the 80's the market for
waste incinerators rapidly collapsed, in the USA the plants again
began to arouse interest.
"Many
decision makers in the U.S. were persuaded in the early 1980s
that the Europeans had long trouble free history of operating
trash incinerators in Europe and that the technology was popular
with citizens and officials. This message was usually coupled
with an all-expenses-paid trip to a number of European plants
which appeared squeaky clean. They were seldom taken to speak
with local citizens or activists, nor were they taken to see waste
management alternatives." Paul Connett.
Since
the second half of the 70's alarming news was spread about pollution
resulting from incinerating toxic and municipal waste. Large emission
of dioxins, furans and heavy metals, mostly cadmium and mercury,
was observed. Thorough examination of incinerators, completed
in the 80's, confirmed that waste incineration was the main source
of toxic substances emission.
The
advocates of incinerators claim that the technology is still very
popular in the West, which is only partly true. In fact, new incinerators
are being built but only to replace the closed down old plants.
Facing the common protest against building the new installations
and due to development of waste reduction programs and municipal
waste recycling, the market for incinerators in the Western Europe
has been rapidly falling for the last decade.
Good
examples for this phenomenon can be two toxic waste incinerators,
some of the biggest in Europe: Kommunekemi-Nyborg in Denmark and
Ekokem-Riihimaki in Finland. Because the amount of toxic waste
in both countries decreased, the executives of the companies to
which the plants belong are desperately seeking contractors for
waste delivery in order to keep the incinerators profitable.
Although
in the USA, in the late 80's, many incinerators were built, the
market for incinerators may collapse there as a result of last
resolutions issued by the US EPA concerning toxic waste incineration.
Other reasons were researches on the impact of dioxins and furans
done by the institution as well as considerable decrease of the
amount of waste caused by recession and introduction of recycling.
"[...]
things could go from bad to worse for the economics of incineration.
Cities are facing huge costs to fit all but the newest plants
with modern air-pollution-control systems. Utilities are fighting
back against a federal law that forces them to buy electricity
from incinerators at above-market price. And the Supreme Court
has agreed to hear two cases, either of which could prove devastating
for municipalities, bondholders, taxpayers and companies that
own incinerators. All of this has brought construction of new
plants to a near halt." Jeff Bailey, "Up in Smoke",
Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, August 11, 1993.
As
in the West the incinerator-building companies and the consulting
firms lack orders they look for them in the post-communist countries.
Over last five years in the Eastern European countries offers
were made for building various types of incinerators and pyrolysis
plants for municipal, hazardous and hospital waste. Deliveries
of waste, mostly toxic, were proposed in return for building installations
destroying it. There were also attempts to sell ash and slag from
incinerators as "material for building roads or for other
practical use."
Pawel
Gluszynski, Western Pyromania Moves East, Waste Prevention Association,
Greenpeace, 1995.
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