title: Environmental impacts of a large-scale incinerator with mixed MSW of high water content from a LCA perspective.
abstract: Large-scale incinerators are applied widely as a result of the heavy burden of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated, while strong opposition is arising from the public living nearby. A large-scale working incineration plant of 1500 ton/day was chosen for evaluation using life cycle assessment. It was found that the corresponding human toxicity impacts via soil (HTs), human toxicity impacts via water (HTw) and human toxicity impacts via air (HTa) categories are 0.213, 2.171, and 0.012 personal equivalents (PE), and global warming (GW100) and nutrient enrichment (NE) impacts are 0.002 and 0.001 PE per ton of waste burned for this plant. Heavy metals in flue gas, such as Hg and Pb, are the two dominant contributors to the toxicity impact categories, and energy recovery could reduce the GW100 and NE greatly. The corresponding HTs, HTw and HTa decrease to 0.087, 0.911 and 0.008 PE, and GW100 turns into savings of -0.007 PE due to the increase of the heating value from 3935 to 5811 kJ/kg, if a trommel screener of 40 mm mesh size is used to pre-separate MSW. MSW sorting and the reduction of water content by physical pressure might be two promising pre-treatment methods to improve the combustion performance, and the application of stricter standards for leachate discharge and the flue gas purification process are two critical factors for improvement of the environmental profile identified in this work.
authors: School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Institute for Waste Management and Contaminated Sites Treatment, TU Dresden Faculty of Forestry, Geo and Hydro Sciences, Pratzschwitzer Str. 15, 01796 Pirna, Germany; State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China. Electronic address: louworld12@sjtu.edu.cn.
authors: Ziyang
authors: Z
authors: Lou
authors: Institute for Waste Management and Contaminated Sites Treatment, TU Dresden Faculty of Forestry, Geo and Hydro Sciences, Pratzschwitzer Str. 15, 01796 Pirna, Germany.
authors: Bernd
authors: B
authors: Bilitewski
authors: School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors: Nanwen
authors: N
authors: Zhu
authors: State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.
authors: Xiaoli
authors: X
authors: Chai
authors: State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.
authors: Bing
authors: B
authors: Li
authors: State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.
authors: Youcai
authors: Y
authors: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity*; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D017745:Incineration / Q000379:methods*; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000633:toxicity; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity*; D062611:Solid Waste / Q000032:analysis*; D014867:Water / Q000032:analysis; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D019216:Metals, Heavy; D012989:Soil Pollutants; D062611:Solid Waste; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D014867:Water
keywords: China; Environmental impact; Large scale incinerator; Life cycle assessment; MSW; Sorting system