"Incineration will solve the problem but it is not an instant solution"

Use waste ash as aggregate for road-building

Response from John Chandler*, consulting engineer and international incineration expert

  Incineration will solve the problem but it is not an instant solution. On the scale the city needs it, even without considering the time it would take to get the necessary approvals, we are looking at 36 months of construction to bring a large incinerator on line. Streamlining the approvals by having the City politicians back the concept might allow the whole cycle to happen in 5 years.
  I think there is a great deal of hype associated with composting and even the digestion processes that will produce gas. They do not reduce the volume of materials that much, and how much soil amendment material can we get rid of on farm land etc. particularly if it is enriched in trace metals?
  While all the measures imposed to date have met with some success in our suburban single family home communities, you hit the nail on the head - what do we do with apartments? But why would we continue to try to force the single family model on these areas. Why not look at solutions that use the waste in its natural form and recover useful materials after it is processed, ie incinerated?
  I would suggest that vitrifying the bottom ash from incinerators is a wasted effort, consuming large amounts of energy and providing little proven benefit to the environment. Bottom ash resembles construction aggregate. Why not use it as such? In most cases it is not used because there is a stigma attached to waste. As I note in the following material it is used in Europe.
  Fly ash is largely dust. It is the condensation product formed as the gases are cooled in the boiler to generate steam. A modern incinerator has little if any "soot" in the flue gas stream because soot is really a product of incomplete combustion of organic materials. The chief means of removing the dust from the gas stream is the fabric filter, simply a giant vacuum cleaner bag that allows gas to pass but retains the dust.
  Air pollution control [APC] system now include measures to remove acid gases and this is accomplished by adding lime to the gas stream. This is also removed in the fabric filter and the APC residue must be handled as a hazardous waste, although new developments could change that too.
  Waste is part of modern society. While reduction, reuse and recycling will reduce the amount sent for disposal, it is unlikely that society will ever be able to say we do not need waste disposal facilities. The question becomes: what environmental standard do we want to set for those operations? and, how much are we willing to spend to achieve this standard?
  If the ultimate depository was filled with a waste that was inert, that is, it did not leach any chemicals at concentrations greater than we would find in the natural environment, and it would not react over time to change its nature or chemical composition and release gases to the atmosphere, we could achieve benign environmental performance. Of course the waste in this depository would likely resemble the gravel we now extract from the earth and use to build our roads and buildings. Surely, if a waste management process could create materials that meet this specification, we could use the residues for construction purposes and minimize the need for the depository in the first place.
  That process exists today and is being used in Europe to manage the waste generated in countries with much higher population densities than Canada, or even Toronto for that matter. The process is municipal solid waste incineration and as a corollary benefit it generates useful energy at the same time. Municipal solid waste incinerators in Germany are optimized electrical power generation facilities, displacing fossil fuel use and minimizing the release of greenhouse gases. The bottom ash they generate is used in construction. Costly waste diversion activities are not required because these facilities take the waste in the form it is generated and any metals in the ash can be recovered for recycling. Incinerators generate a small quantity (<2% of the original mass) of solid waste that must be managed in an appropriate manner but one promising Canadian technology will treat this residue and produce inert fills, industrial chemicals and metal sludges that can be returned to base metal smelters for reprocessing. Incinerators can be sited where the waste is generated thereby limiting the need to transport waste long distances. Large European cities have incinerators located in urban industrial areas.
  What we need is the political will to recognize that we have the technology for waste disposal. That technology poses little threat to the environment. In fact, the industry has lead the way by accepting the newly proposed Canada Wide Standards that are the most stringent air emission standards for mercury and dioxins and furans in the world. Applying the technology will not be inexpensive, but few solutions are if all the costs are included. Fiddling with the system to provide solutions that will allow us to squeeze more recyclables from the apartment dwellers may seem laudable, as is the goal of composting waste but is the expenditure well directed when we have education, health and public safety issues to fund as well?

* John Chandler is the Principal of A.J. Chandler & Associates Ltd., an environmental consulting firm formed in 1990. He has worked extensively in the environmental consulting field including waste management activities and numerous international studies on incinerators. He assisted the committee that developed the Canadian MSW Incinerator Operating and Emissions Guidelines in 1986-87 assisted in the preparation of interventions on MWC and HWI regulatory issues to the US EPA and was involved in ASME sponsored research to prove the efficacy of alternate ways to control emissions from smaller MSW incinerators. On the international side, he has undertaken a study that compared sampling methodologies for MSW incinerators in the early 1990s; was a member of the International Ash Working Group and was principal researcher on a project that looked at the issues surrounding the application of MSW technology to the reduction of methane emissions from MSW management activities. As an environmental consultant to the KMS Peel MSW incinerator project, he has first-hand knowledge of the issues surrounding the approval and operation of an new incinerator in Ontario.

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