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Incineration – Solid Waste Disposal
Guiyang residents plan protest against waste incinerator
Saturday, 06 July, 2013, 12:00am
News›China
SOCIAL UNREST
Olivia Rosenman olivia.rosenman@scmp.com
Guiyang residents angry about plans to build waste incinerator near a built-up area; authorities cancel consultation meeting
Guiyang residents plan to march on a local government headquarters today to protest against a planned incinerator to be built near residential areas in the Guizhou capital.
Organisers expect 300 people to turn out to voice their opposition to the plant, which they say will emit toxic air pollution and contaminate their water supply.
One organiser said the group wanted the government to move the site at least 10 kilometres from residential areas.
The current location for the incinerator is just 3 kilometres from a community of around 50,000 people, including schools and a hospital, on the northern side of the city.
A public hearing on the environmental impact assessment for the incinerator had been planned for Monday, but has been postponed indefinitely.
A spokesman for the local ecological construction bureau said by phone yesterday that the agency had been overwhelmed with registrations and was trying to find a larger venue for the hearing. A Guiyang resident who signed up for the hearing, said she received a text message telling her the hearing had been postponed because “more preparations” are needed.
“I’m worried about the negative impact,” said the woman, who lives about 6 kilometres from the proposed site. “But I feel I don’t know enough about it, which is why I wanted to attend the hearing.”
Garbage incineration is often associated with high emissions of dioxin gases, which are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and cause cancer, according to the World Health Organisation.
“People can be exposed to these pollutants via inhalation or by touching the soil or eating the food grown locally”, said Mao Da, a researcher with Nature University, a Beijing-based environmental group.
Mao said high concentrations of pollutants usually persist up to 3 kilometres from an incinerator. Although concentrations fall beyond that radius, they are still not necessarily safe.
“There is some evidence that Chinese incinerators emit very high levels of dioxins and mercury,” Mao said.
“So if we evaluate the distance based on the Chinese reality, it will be very different from standards in other countries like Japan, Germany and Denmark.”
The frequency of environmental protests is increasing on the mainland.
In May, thousands of Kunming residents in mobilised against a petrochemical plant. The same weekend, a similar protest planned in Chengdu , Sichuan , was quashed by thousands of police who took to the streets to deter would-be protesters.
Source URL (retrieved on Jul 8th 2013, 10:52pm): http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1276433/guiyang-residents-plan-protest-against-waste-incinerator
what value to place on waste as a commodity ?
The Value of Municipal Solid Waste (garbage)
The OEC process unlocks the value of the MSW stream. Based on US EPA data and site specific waste characterizations, this value is US$100/ton or more.
This allows OEC to build facilities at our cost and share revenue with communities. It also brings job creation, new businesses and community involvement in the reuse of MSW.
Building Sustainable Communities
· 80%+ diversion from the landfill by “mining” the municipal solid waste (MSW) for recyclable commodities and organics. Over two to four times the average removal of recyclables and valuable materials than typical recycling programs provide your community today.
· Process fully supported by leading environmental groups.
· Separate collection of recyclables and green waste is not required. For consumers, multi-family, and commercial properties only one bin is needed.
· Ability to act as a commercial recycling facility while producing renewable energy.
· Proven major Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor constructs projects.
· The environmentally friendly OEC patent-pending waste removal process is performance guaranteed with third party performance bond.
· Facility can be located at a landfill, operating Materials Recycling Facility, transfer station or greenfield site to best suit the community.
· OEC personnel have an average of over 30 years of experience in solid waste handling, recycling, design, facility management and project development.
· Unlocking both the real commodity value of MSW and its potential value including job creation, new business possibilities and community education.
· Why pay to bury recyclable waste that represents a resource worth $100 per ton or more?
· Economic development is achieved through job creation, revenue sharing with the city and by reclaiming the value of the resources in the waste stream that are currently being buried.
· New businesses can build adjacent to the OEC facility to utilize recovered materials and manufacture new products, e.g. plastics to packaging, textile amendments and plastics to oil. Wood is converted to new products like sustainable decking and building materials and much more.
http://www.organicenergycorp.com/benefits/
Lawmakers prepare to trash timetable for landfill expansion plan
Saturday, 06 July, 2013, 12:00am
News› Hong Kong
Joshua But joshua.but@scmp.com
Pan-democrats may find unlikely ally from Tuen Mun, as residents rally against expansion
Landfill extensions in Ta Kwu Ling and Tuen Mun are facing another setback after lawmakers vowed to launch a filibuster to delay government funding applications in the Legislative Council next Friday.
Lawmaker “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung of the League of Social Democrats yesterday said he was preparing to file up to 52,000 amendments in next week’s Finance Committee meeting, the last in this legislative session.
The move could stop the application for the projects, which the government says are essential to stave off a waste crisis, being passed before the summer break.
“The amendments will focus on all fronts of rubbish management in the city, from waste reduction at source to the waste recycling industry,” Leung said. “The aim is to prevent the fund applications being passed in the current session.”
People Power lawmaker Albert Chan Wai-yip and Democratic Party lawmaker Helena Wong Pik-wan also suggested that they might join Leung’s filibuster effort.
“You can call it [a filibuster if] you like,” Wong said “I am going to ask questions next Friday.”
Tuen Mun residents’ opposition also means the pan-democrats might find an unusual ally in their cause – pro-government lawmaker Lau Wong-fat, chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk and Tuen Mun district council.
“The district council will hold a workshop on Monday and I will decide afterwards,” he said.
Finance Committee procedure allows a lawmaker to move a motion without notice to express a view on an agenda item.
Earlier this week a HK$7 billion extension of the Ta Kwu Ling landfill and a HK$35 million study of expansion at the Tuen Mun landfill received approval from the Legco’s public works subcommittee after a third extension, in Tseung Kwan O, was withdrawn.
The filibuster may also delay consideration of civil service pay increases, next on the agenda.
New People’s Party lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, also an executive councillor, said she feared that the city’s 170,000 civil servants would not receive their raises on time.
The adjustment of less than 4 per cent will be counted retrospectively from April 1, no matter when it was passed.
“For junior-rank government employees, the pay rise could be quite a sum of money,” she said. “It is better [for it] to come early than late.”
Source URL (retrieved on Jul 6th 2013, 11:56am): http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1276330/lawmakers-prepare-trash-timetable-landfill-expansion-plan
Rubbish recyclers may get subsidies in waste policy overhaul
Rubbish recyclers may get subsidies in waste policy overhaul
Wednesday, 03 July, 2013, 12:00am
News›Hong Kong
ENVIRONMENT
Cheung Chi-fai chifai.cheung@scmp.com
New committee will be tasked with rethinking rubbish management as trash crisis looms
Subsidies for the city’s flagging waste recycling industry are an option that the government will study, the environment minister says, in a possible major policy shift to support such businesses.
The idea was unveiled yesterday, as two of the administration’s proposals – a HK$7 billion extension of the Ta Kwu Ling landfill and a HK$35 million study of expansion at the Tuen Mun facility – received approval from a Legislative Council subcommittee.
A new high-level steering committee, to be chaired by Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, would examine whether and how to offer the subsidies, said Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing. Lam has been lobbying directly for lawmakers’ support on the landfills.
The committee, to be formed within months, will look at rubbish management on all fronts, from land use and planning to government procurement and manpower to help the recycling industry. In particular, it will look at whether the trade should be subsidised.
“The committee will study the possibility of offering regular subsidies to support the recycling industry,” Wong said. “In the long run, we will not rule out setting up a recycling fund.”
The committee will study the possibility of offering regular subsidies to support the recycling industry. In the long run, we will not rule out setting up a recycling fund
He said any planned subsidy must be cost-effective for the whole of society.
A source familiar with the situation described the move as possibly a “major policy shift”. “The committee may be only a start. But it marks the government’s first ever recognition that recycling businesses could be subsidised.”
A lot of questions had to be studied before any concrete plan could be decided on, the source added, addressing such issues as who should be eligible, what the target recycling rate and level of subsidy should be, and whether to include imported waste.
If subsidies were provided, the government should also take the opportunity to upgrade the industry, which is now engaged mainly in waste export, they said.
Last year, the city recovered about three million tonnes of waste, 99 per cent of which was exported, generating revenue of HK$8.2 billion.
Wong floated the option at a meeting of the Legislative Council public works subcommittee that voted in support of the two landfill proposals. Both plans will be tabled to the Legco Finance Committee on July 12 for final funding approval.
A third extension plan, for the Tseung Kwan O landfill, was dropped last week because of strong opposition, but is expected to be resubmitted next year.
Wong Yuk-chun, who operates a recycling plant that turns food waste into fish feed, welcomed the new focus on recycling, but expressed reservations.
“It is interesting to see the government has been paying unscrupulous contractors to collect plastic waste and dump it in landfills,” he said. “But we who collect food waste locally and reprocess it into a final product … receive not a single cent.”
He cited high land rents and difficulties in waste collection as obstacles to their operations.
Both Federation of Trade Unions and Labour Party lawmakers have been asking for a recycling fund if they are to support landfill extensions.
Celia Fung Sze-lai, from Friends of the Earth, said subsidies should target the rubbish that the market had the least incentive to collect and recycle, such as plastics, food and wood.
Source URL (retrieved on Jul 3rd 2013, 8:01am): http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1274142/rubbish-recyclers-may-get-subsidies-waste-policy-overhaul
Does the government need to rethink its incinerator project?
Laisee comments:
dynamco Jul 3rd 2013 9:19am
Incinerator bag houses and flues cannot control PM1 and PM2.5 RSP heavy metal emissions that are the killers.
The previous ENB minister left an air pollution + waste disaster for the incumbents.
His abject failure to act means HK now needs an immediate (less than 3 years) gasification treatment option instead of dinosaur incineration 7+ years + JR appeals hence. The obvious treatment site w/ existing marine waste delivery train at Tsang Tsui has been allocated as a columbarium. SENT will receive no more food waste but when it closes necessitates MSW transport from the entire East Kowloon for disposal. West Kowloon TS is already at capacity. Haul times + costs will double or 3x as will vehicle generated air quality problems unless E KLN waste can be barged. To minimise this problem KLN Bay TS will have to reopen to truck 2000 TPD to NENT. However this is opposite the new cruise liner terminal which displaced all the typhoon moorings in Kai Tak typhoon shelter SENT will need replacement by a major transfer station capable of dealing with 2700 TPD destined for WENT.
20,000+tpd public fill material construction waste from building + demolishing things handled by CEDD is currently being delivered along Wan Po Rd Area 137 + then shipped to China
(is that considered part of the recycling 48% number quoted by EPD ?)
www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/data/stat_treat.html
www.wastereduction.gov.hk/en/quickaccess/stat_recycle.htm
Fuzzy numbers indeed !
Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)
Home > Does the government need to rethink its incinerator project?
Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)
Home > Does the government need to rethink its incinerator project?
Does the government need to rethink its incinerator project?
Wednesday, 03 July, 2013, 12:00am
Business
LAI SEE
Howard Winn howard.winn@scmp.com
The government’s plans for dealing with waste are beginning to look awry. It recently had to withdraw its proposal to extend landfills in the face of popular opposition. Its decision to build a big incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau looks as if it will be tied up in the courts for some time. Maybe it is time for the government to rethink some aspects of its plan.
The incinerator project has aroused opposition on account of its proposed location and because of the technology. Many people think it is in the wrong place. As for the technology, it produces a large amount of ash, which has to be treated because of its toxicity and then has to be dumped somewhere. The ash can amount to as much as 20 per cent of the weight of the municipal solid waste (MSW) burned. The present plan involves elaborate arrangements for loading the ash on to barges and shipping it to the ash lagoons in the Northwest New Territories until they are filled up.
The other concern is the public health aspects of incinerators. In the 1990s and 1980s, they spewed out high levels of toxic emissions that have damaged the environment and had a deleterious effect on people’s health. It is true that modern incinerators produce a fraction of the emissions of earlier generations. The impact on public health is harder to gauge. In Germany, which has the highest number of incinerators in Europe, and in some other countries, incineration is not seen to be a problem, but in Spain and Britain it is. So, is incineration the best technology for dealing with MSW in Hong Kong?
One technology that is increasingly being employed by municipal authorities around the world is plasma gasification. The EPD says it has looked at the technology but doesn’t think it is suitable for handling 3,000 tonnes a day. This view is not shared by the suppliers of the equipment, who say the units are modular and can be combined to deal with this level of waste. A paper by Mousad Pourali, a senior member of the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, written in 2009, says a typical plasma gasification with a feedstock of 3,000 tonnes of MSW a day is estimated to cost more than US$400 million (HK$3.1 billion) and generate about 120 megawatts of electricity. Even if the price doubles, this is a lot less than the HK$28 billion envisaged for the Shek Kwu Chau project. Emissions would be a fraction of the proposed incinerator, and the slag is inert and can be used for building roads, and there is, therefore, no need for barging toxic waste.
Indeed, instead of one large unit, a number of smaller units could be built – one for each of the landfills, which could gradually munch their way through the waste with the aims of emptying them. This seems a far less controversial path to pursue than the one proposed by the government. It’s cleaner, it appears to cost less, and it could eventually empty the landfills. For these reasons, the government may stand a better chance of getting such a plan through the Legislative Council.
Source URL (retrieved on Jul 3rd 2013, 6:31am): http://www.scmp.com/business/article/1274214/does-government-need-rethink-its-incinerator-project
Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)
Home > Rubbish recyclers may get subsidies in waste policy overhaul
Accelerated carbonation of municipal solid waste incineration fly ashes.
Colin D Hills |
|
University of Greenwich |
Accelerated carbonation of municipal solid waste incineration fly ashes.
Xiaomin Li, Marta Fernández Bertos, Colin D Hills, Paula J Carey, Stef Simon
Centre for Contaminated Land Remediation, University of Greenwich at Medway, Chatham Maritime, Kent, ME4 4TB, UK.
Waste Management (impact factor: 2.43). 02/2007; 27(9):1200-6. DOI:10.1016/j.wasman.2006.06.011
Source: PubMed
ABSTRACT As a result of the EU Landfill Directive, the disposal of municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash is restricted to only a few landfill sites in the UK. Alternative options for the management of fly ash, such as sintering, vitrification or stabilization/solidification, are either costly or not fully developed. In this paper an accelerated carbonation step is investigated for use with fly ash. The carbonation reaction involving fly ash was found to be optimum at a water/solid ratio of 0.3 under ambient temperature conditions. The study of ash mineralogy showed the disappearance of lime/portlandite/calcium chloride hydroxide and the formation of calcite as carbonation proceeded. The leaching properties of carbonated ash were examined. Release of soluble salts, such as SO4, Cl, was reduced after carbonation, but is still higher than the landfill acceptance limits for hazardous waste. It was also found that carbonation had a significant influence on lead leachability. The lead release from carbonated ash, with the exception of one of the fly ashes studied, was reduced by 2-3 orders of magnitude.
MONITORING OF SOLID WASTE IN HONG KONG
Download : msw2011
Incinerator site folly is sadly symptomatic
SCMP Comments dynamco Jun 30th 2013 10:48am
“little doubt Hong Kong needs a waste incinerator”
how wrong can you be!
www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1271395/incineration-key-managing-waste#comments
In fact there is zero doubt living downwind of incinerator PM1 /PM2.5 kills children + adults + causes birth defects +cancers. Read the reports.
Options are available:
Export MSW to Europe where there is a shortage + countries like Norway, Sweden, Germany and Netherlands need it since they have incineration overcapacity + strict recycling laws in place.
Our landfills could be recovered following the Belgium example.
www.r3magazine.co.uk/2011/06/advanced-plasma-power-and-group-machiels-join-forces/
Our MSW could be feedstock to be converted to bio jetfuel, bio marine fuel or bio naptha using the Fischer Tropsch process after gasification with No ASH residues.
Alternatively gasification technology could be used to generate electricity with No Ash residues + the generation sold to PRD.
Incineration (thermal conversion) of MSW in the presence of oxygen leaves 30% by weight as ash of which 7% is toxic fly ash – ash requires landfilling + treatment. Gasification in absence of oxygen renders MSW into molecular gaseous plasma (4th state of matter) components at the temperature of the sun; the residues are lava like rock that can be used as road aggregate since the ash is fused as vitreous lava + there are no residues to landfill. HKG currently imports all its construction aggregate with associated pollution.
Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)
Home > Letters to the Editor, June 30, 2013
Letters to the Editor, June 30, 2013
Sunday, 30 June, 2013, 12:00am
Comment›Letters
Incinerator site folly is sadly symptomatic
There is little doubt Hong Kong needs a waste incinerator, but huge advances could still be made in recycling.
For example, how about a government-led initiative to buy back plastic bottles, at a similar price to that paid for aluminium cans, thereby incentivising Hong Kong’s amateur army of aluminium recyclers to also collect plastic? And if Swire Properties can put glass collection points on all their estates, why can’t the government?
Sadly, Hong Kong lags far behind our Asian neighbours Taiwan, South Korea and Japan when it comes to household waste separation and recycling.
Given the need for a super-incinerator, it is the choice of location that is totally bewildering. Siting it on a remote island makes no sense at all; the experts all agree on this point.
It will take longer and cost more to build and to run than at alternative locations. Just the infrastructure required is stupefying: the building of a mini-town to house site workers.
Experts agree the Tsang Tsui ash lagoons in Tuen Mun would make a far better location. Alternatively, adapting an existing landfill site would also be far more efficient.
The Environmental Protection Department’s excuse for the choice of site, “balanced spatial distribution” of facilities, is absolutely laughable, or would be if it wasn’t so tragic.
The saddest part of the whole farce is that the department’s preferred site, Shek Kwu Chau island, is a pristine location, a stone’s throw from Hong Kong’s most beautiful unspoilt natural coastline.
This natural heritage is a treasure that should be protected for future generations – not ruined forever with an industrial facility that would make so much more sense in just about any other location.
Bert Young, Chai Wan
Source URL (retrieved on Jun 30th 2013, 10:48am): http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1271878/letters-editor-june-30-2013