Waste Incineration Issues (the toxic emission, ashes and health problems)

Bottom ash (clinker) is produced from the furnace and is 90% of total ash produced by incinerators. Bottom ash contains significant concentrations of heavy metals, organic-halogens and other chemo-pollutants. Fly ash is the tiny particles which are trapped by controlling equipment. Fly ash is produced less than the bottom ash. It is correct that “the cleaner the air emissions, the more hazardous ash production”.

Temporary storages of these ashes usually are open pits or gears without any protection against wind and rain which cause serious health risks for those who work and live near the incinerator’s storage facilities.

The final disposal site which is mostly a landfill, allows pollutants like dioxins and heavy metals leak from it and eventually pollute the environment, (Based on USEPA). Sometimes these ashes use for construction purposes and they could easily penetrate to the groundwater’s aquifers and cause serious environmental and health risks.

Incinerator’s ashes, mainly fly ash, is unsafe and have to be treated as the same as other hazardous wastes, but in some countries the operators ignore the hazardous property of these ashes and claim those as “inert” materials that can be used for construction of roads. As an example, in Newcastle, England, ashes from municipal waste incinerator was spread on pathways, park and school’s playing fields. The continuation of this method forced Val Barton who was a local resident to call an agency, Communities Against Toxics (CATs), and after sampling and testing the results showed high levels of dioxins, arsenic, lead and mercury. This test revealed the existing level of dioxin as high as 9500 nanogram I-TEQ/kg. The standard level has to be less than 5 nanogram I-TEQ/kg. That was among ...

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...oring expenses. As an energy production tool, they are inefficient and waste energy more than they produce. Huge environmental impacts are non-negligible. Also they have had huge social-resistance behind itself.

Human’s final solution regarding to deal with waste is to inform society to produce less waste and impose companies to produce recyclable and non-hazardous products. For paving this path, material management method would be more useful than other solutions.

Works Cited

 Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology. GAIA. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.

 INCINERATION AND HUMAN HEALTH. Michelle Allsopp, Pat Costner and Paul Johnston Greenpeace Research Laboratories, University of Exeter, UK.

 After Incineration : The Toxic Ashe Problem , Jindřich Petrlík, M.S., Ralph Anthony Ryder, Prague – Manchester, April 2005

 Wikipedia, Incineration.