Incineration – Solid Waste Disposal

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PRIVATE EYE MAGAZINE In the Back

INCINERATORS

Feel the burn

With dozens of new incinerators poised to appear all over Britain, why is the UK so far behind the United States in concern over possible health risks to the public?

Incinerators emit fine smoke particulates, known as PM2.5, from burning rubbish. These are less than 2.5 microns in diameter and can be absorbed straight into the blood. In 1997, the US passed tough new laws requiring coal-fired power stations and incinerators to measure PM2.5 continually and to keep down emissions.

The new laws followed a series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine and studies from the Harvard Air Effects Institute which found a strong association with overall mortality, cardiovascular deaths and also lung cancer.

The regulations were challenged by the power companies but upheld by the US supreme court as the evidence of the dangers of PM2.5 was undeniable.

In Britain, by contrast, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has repeatedly said that “modern incinerators” when “well run” cause “very little public health damage”.

This has suited the government because incinerators, although expensive when built under the private finance initiative (PFI), allow the government to pay less EU landfill tax.

The Commons environmental audit committee did put out a report in 2009-2010 stating that: “The costs and health impact of fine particle,PM2.5, air pollution is almost twice that of obesity and physical inactivity.” Obesity was then costing the health system £ 10.7bn a year, while PM2.5 pollution was estimated to cost up to £ 20.2bn. The report also asked why fine particle pollution received no attention in media and medical circles.

Part of the answer might lie in the high number of government advisers involved in expensive (and so remunerative) incinerator PFI schemes.

In addition, an emissions tester for incinerators has contacted the Eye to add to the picture.

This whistleblower says that to fulfill the Environment Agency permit, PM2.5 is not continuously measured and incinerator companies only have to send measurements from their stacks usually once a year.

Private companies charge between £10,000 and £120,000 a year to carry out the tests. But if an incinerator fails, the companies have no duty to report this to the Environment Agency and another test is done later. The incinerator companies can decide when it is done and will do it months in advance to make sure they get the right result.

Companies can even change the type of waste they burn and the temperature at which they do so for test day.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs admits to having 62 Monitoring stations across the UK for PM2.5, none of them anywhere near an incinerator.

Given that the UK had 103 incinerator sites licensed in 2010, and By 201 I a further 20 applications from the large power companies were on the books at Defra, it is surely time for the UK to start following the stricter monitoring policies of the US.

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Submitted by admin on Jan 31st 2013, 12:00am

Comment›Insight & Opinion

Tom Yam

Tom Yam says while there’s no question that Hong Kong needs a waste treatment plant, an incinerator based on fading technology that’s also highly polluting isn’t our only choice

Most of us would agree that reducing waste at source, recycling and reuse is the best long-term approach to Hong Kong’s waste disposal. But let’s face it, given the 18,000 tonnes we generate daily, there’s no way that the “three Rs” can prevent our garbage from filling up all three landfills by 2019.

The landfills will have to be extended. And thermal decomposition technology will need to be employed as well. The critical questions are: what is the technology, and where should this technology be located?

It’s important to note that thermal decomposition technology is not limited to incineration. It encompasses newer, more advanced technologies that need a little more vision to consider. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Department has only applied tunnel vision to the problem so far.

Since 2007, it has been fixated on building a colossal incinerator costing HK$15 billion that uses old technology to burn 3,000 tonnes of waste a day. Worse, the department proposes to build this bonfire in the pristine natural environment of Shek Kwu Chau, off south Lantau.

The way the department has been pushing this mega incinerator, you’d think there was no alternative. But there is. A more flexible and creative strategy is to build a small-scale, state-of-the-art plasma gasification plant that can be integrated with the existing waste-disposal facilities at one of the current landfill locations. If this plant proves successful, its capacity can be gradually expanded.

Phasing it in will minimise the risks of deploying this advanced technology: we can see whether it disposes of our waste efficiently. If the pilot plasma gasification plant performs well, build more at other landfill sites. Adopting cutting-edge technology while managing potential risks would be the approach of a “world city”, rather than putting all our eggs in one basket with a mass-burn incinerator based on sunset technology.

The core technology of the moving-grate incinerator beloved of the Environmental Protection Department has not changed in 50 years. It burns waste at 800 degrees Celsius, releasing combustion gases into the atmosphere. Almost a third of the waste remains hazardous ash that needs to be transported to landfills for disposal. Incremental improvements to this technology over the years have mainly involved pollution-control devices to manage – but not eliminate – toxic emissions.

In the United States, the number of incinerators using moving-grate technology has fallen from 186 in 1990 to 87 in 2010, due to their health risks and high costs, along with the increase in waste reduction and recycling. No new incinerators have been built in the US since 2010. Last year, the New York City government specifically excluded moving-grate technology in its request for bids to build a new waste-to-energy treatment plant.

In Japan, the number of moving-grate incinerators was cut by 25 per cent between 1998 and 2005, when it stood at 1,320. Plasma gasification technology has been introduced at two locations. In Europe, wide-ranging waste reduction and recycling have actually led to an over-supply of incinerator capacity.

It is only in developing countries like China that moving-grate incinerators are being constructed in significant numbers. Manufacturers using this technology recognise that it is coming to the end of its life cycle. They are pushing to squeeze profits from it before it becomes obsolete.

Although moving-grate technology incinerates waste into ash, the gasification process converts waste into synthesis gas and slag – a type of solid waste – with recovery of energy and valuable metals. Gasification is completely different from incineration; burning does not occur in a plasma gasification unit.

Plasma gasification employs extreme temperatures (4,000 to 8,000 degrees) in the absence or near-absence of oxygen, with organic and other materials broken up into chemical elements that are then either collected (in the case of valuable metals), vitrified to produce an inert glass-like slag, or reformed into synthesis gas that can be used as an industrial feedstock or converted to energy.

About 100 commercial plasma gasification waste-processing facilities have been constructed worldwide since 1994. Most of these plants are used to vitrify incinerator ash. Others are used to process medical waste, hazardous waste and other difficult types of waste. Two in Japan are treating municipal solid waste, with more being planned. One in Ottawa, Canada, is being built. British Airways recently reached a deal to build plasma gasification facilities that can convert waste into aviation fuel. Four in the US, two in Britain, four in Canada, one in India and one in China are reportedly being planned .

An examination of scientific and technical literature, media reports and other sources found no health or safety problems, and few environmental problems, with plasma arc disposal systems. Also, no environmental or health and safety problems have been reported among the eight plants treating materials including asbestos, tannery waste, aluminium dross, catalytic converters, medical waste and munitions.

If plasma gasification is the best solution, the obvious question is: Why aren’t there more waste-disposal plants using this technology? The answer is simple: The capital cost is still very high. However, as with any new technology, the cost will inevitably drop as it is used in more plants and adopted by more users.

The choice that Hong Kong faces is clear: will it use a sunset, pollutant- emitting technology for a plant built in a pristine environment, or will it judiciously integrate step by step an advanced technology in existing landfills that is being adopted worldwide with much less environmental and health impact?

Is the Environmental Protection Department smart enough to understand the difference?

Tom Yam is a Hong Kong-based management consultant. He holds a doctorate in electrical engineering and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Topics:

Waste disposal

Pollution

Recycling

Incinerator

Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)

Home > Revealing Hong Kong identity numbers is not a privacy issue

There is some dismay among green groups over what they believe is the government’s determination to push ahead with “incineration” as a way of dealing with Hong Kong’s municipal waste. Readers will be aware that plans to build a traditional mass burn incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau off south Lantau were shelved last year by the Legislative Council. However, such despondency appears to be misplaced, since the government is committed to rethinking the project. There has been some confusion as “incineration” has been loosely used to include all processes using heat such as traditional incineration and plasma arc.

However, Environment Secretary Wong Kam-sing said in December last year that the Environmental Protection Department would study different technologies for dealing with waste, including plasma arc. This was confirmed recently when another senior figure told Lai See that the EPD would bring in “experts” to brief them, rather than salesmen or consultants.

Submitted by admin on Jan 28th 2013, 12:00am

Comment›Insight & Opinion

LEADER

SCMP Editorial

Waste has for too long been a dirty word in Hong Kong. The paucity of discussion has meant that our city faces a garbage crisis that can be resolved only through prompt and decisive action. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying broadly outlined a viable solution in his election manifesto and the blueprint has been better defined in his policy address and briefings by his environmental team. While the precise details are being worked out, we need to accept that the time for procrastination has long passed.

With our three landfills reaching capacity in 2019, the waste management strategies that successive governments have raised, but failed to implement, can no longer be ignored. Each is controversial, which is why the problem has been passed from one administration to the next. But Leung realises that time is running out and he has hard choices to make. Protracted argument and debate are no longer options.

The landfills have to be extended; that is unfortunate, but given the amount of time other measures will take, necessary. Waste disposal charges, acceptable to 60 per cent of respondents to a public consultation last year, have to be set and implemented. That will affect the way we dispose of household garbage – a wide-ranging recycling policy will be a central part. Lastly, there has to be incineration.

In a city where land is in such short supply, the lack of concerted recycling and incineration is shocking. Both, coupled with landfills, are a necessary part of waste management. But given how unsophisticated our approach has been, the financial outlay will be high: deputy environment secretary Christine Loh Kung-wai put the amount that needs to be spent over the next seven years at a minimum of HK$31 billion. Showing that the perceived solutions have already been given considerable thought, she laid out a timetable for implementation of measures through to 2021, the latest targeted commissioning date for a waste-to-energy incinerator.

But timetables and costs are only part of an effective waste management strategy. There has to be community support, and for each envisaged step there will be those who resist. Hong Kong cannot continue with its wasteful ways, though; each of us has to be responsible for what we consume and the waste that we create. It will come at a cost, but the clean streets and sense of civic responsibility that result will be worth it.

Topics:

Waste Management

Landfills

Recycling

Incineration

Submitted by admin on Jan 27th 2013, 12:00am

News›China

CHANGING FACES

Mandy Zuo mandy.zuo@scmp.com

Campaigner sues Guangzhou environment bureau for failing to provide all the information she requested about an incineration plant

Chen Liwen is suing Guangzhou’s Environmental Protection Bureau after it refused to fully disclose all the information she requested about the city’s only waste incineration power plant. The 31-year-old, who has investigated pollution caused by inappropriate waste disposal since 2010, says getting waste disposal statistics from government is an important part of her work for an environmental NGO, but few governments provided all the information she asked for, even though the mainland had enacted legislation on the disclosure of government information in 2008.

When did you become aware of the waste issue?

I started with the climate change team at a Beijing-based environmental NGO, Global Village, after I earned my master’s degree in 2008. I joined another NGO, Nature University, and started focusing on waste issues at the beginning of 2010. After visiting many waste incineration power plants, I realised they’re having a big impact on the environment and society.

Why did you sue the Guangzhou environment authority?

On July 20 last year, I submitted an application for four pieces of information on the Likeng waste incineration power plant via the website of Guangzhou’s Environmental Protection Bureau. They were: the whole draft of the environmental assessment report on the Likeng project; statistics on air pollutants and dioxin emission by the project between June 2006 and last June; statistics on the production of ash and cinders and how they were treated during the same period; and whether the Likeng project was Guangdong’s major source of dioxin emissions.

According to the Regulations for the Disclosure of Government Information, government bodies should reply to public requests for information disclosure within 15 working days. I received the bureau’s written reply more than a month later, which just gave some statistics in the second category of information I asked for.

Filing a lawsuit is costly and a last-ditch move for me. By bringing it to court, I hope requests for government information will no longer be so difficult for the public.

The Yuexiu district court heard the case on January 18. We’re expecting a reasonable judgment.

Which local governments have you dealt with to get information concerning waste incineration?

From 2011, we applied for information from local environment departments every time we investigated a waste incineration project or conducted an environmental assessment for such a project. They included the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the environmental protection bureaus/departments of Beijing, Jiangsu , Nantong , Qidong , Sichuan , Chengdu , Guangzhou, Jilin , Fuzhou, Beijing’s Municipal City Administration and Environment Commission and its Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

How did they reply to your requests?

There were so many unexpected and ludicrous replies. In 2011, the Haian county environment bureau in Jiangsu province replied to us in an e-mail after receiving our application for the environmental assessment report on a local waste incineration power plant. The e-mail contained just one sentence, saying the project had been approved by the provincial environment department.

What we got from Beijing’s environment watchdog after applying for statistics on smoke emissions from the Gaoantun waste incineration power plant was a photo of a screen showing monitored data, with one line explaining that we could find the information we wanted from the screen outside the plant.

The funniest experience was in January last year, when we applied for the disclosure of 13 pieces of information from the Jiangsu provincial environment department. The system showed we had submitted our request successfully, but they said they had received scrambled characters and asked us to submit it again. Another funny one was from the Haian county government, which said an intern had lost its environment assessment report.

What impressed me most was that when requesting environmental assessment reports, most of the local governments suggested we get them from the contractor of the project or the drafter of the report, or said they needed to “make inquiries with related companies because it involves business secrets”, or “it’s not in the category of information the government should voluntarily disclose”.

Is this the first time you have filed a lawsuit in order to get government information? Do you think you will win?

Yes, it’s the first time. I’m not sure if I can win the lawsuit, and I’m afraid that even if I do, the Guangzhou environment bureau may still not implement the court’s decision.

But we will keep moving. The next body we may sue could be the Jiangsu Provincial Environmental Protection Department. We hope that through legal action, environment authorities will face the issue of information disclosure.

What else do you do in seeking to reduce the environmental impact of waste disposal?

There are three other things. The first is public participation – every week, we invite experts or people who engage in treating waste to give free lectures in Beijing, and invite the public to visit waste incineration plants, waste landfill sites, recycling plants and communities which are sorting waste.

The second is field investigation. We investigate places where local residents complain about pollution caused by improper waste disposal, circulate the news if it’s true, and help locals solve the problem.

The third is that starting from last year, we have tried doing tests on pollution on our own, in co-operation with some universities.

What are the major problems that China is facing now in terms of waste disposal?

In major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou or other smaller cities, the governments’ logic in dealing with waste is the same – make sure it’s not in my sight and that’s all. In fact, they have not solved the problem by burning or burying it, but just transferred the problem to the air or somewhere else. For example, we got leachate, solid waste and air pollutants after burning.

It seems that some cities have rolled out waste sorting, but few of them actually have a long-term plan on this.

In the central government’s five-year plan for waste treatment, on the one hand it says we should push forward with the sorting and recycling of waste, but on the other it also contains a lengthy section on incineration, saying the percentage of waste to be incinerated should be raised and setting goals for different regions. So it seems the central government itself is still thinking more of low-end solutions to the problem.

Chen Liwen spoke to Mandy Zuo

Topics:

Waste Management

Environment

Guangzhou

Chen Liwen

http://ukwin.org.uk/2013/01/25/european-environment-commissioner-calls-for-incineration-limits/
European Environment Commissioner calls for incineration limits

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Jan 252013

European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnik has stated that he would welcome medium-term bans on the incineration of re-usable, recyclable and compostable material across all EU member states.

Janez Potočnik is reported to have told Materials Recycling Week (MRW) that: “Most of them [EU member states with less than 5% landfill] got there by using fiscal policy to gradually raise the cost of landfilling; some of them went so far as to ban landfills, and some are now considering bans on the incineration of certain types of waste…I would welcome such bans in the medium term in all member states, particularly for reusable, recyclable/compostable waste streams. It certainly won’t happen overnight, but there should be no doubt about the direction we need to take.”

Milestones of the European Commission’s September 2011 Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe include: “By 2020 EHS [Environmentally Harmful Subsidies] will be phased out….”; ”By 2020 a major shift from taxation of labour towards environmental taxation…”; and that “By 2020, waste is managed as a resource. Waste generated per capita is in absolute decline. Recycling and re-use of waste are economically attractive options for public and private actors due to widespread separate collection and the development of functional markets for secondary raw materials. More materials, including materials having a significant impact on the environment and critical raw materials, are recycled. Waste legislation is fully implemented… Energy recovery is limited to non recyclable materials, landfilling is virtually eliminated and high quality recycling is ensured.”

This was followed up in May 2012 with the European Parliament resolution of 24 May 2012 on a Resource-efficient Europe, including Action 33 which: “Calls on the Commission to streamline the waste acquis, taking into account the waste hierarchy and the need to bring residual waste close to zero; calls on the Commission, therefore, to make proposals by 2014 with a view to gradually introducing a general ban on waste landfill at European level and for the phasing-out, by the end of this decade, of incineration of recyclable and compostable waste; this should be accompanied by appropriate transition measures including the further development of common standards based on life-cycle thinking; calls on the Commission to revise the 2020 recycling targets of the Waste Framework Directive; is of the opinion that a landfill tax – as has already been introduced by some Member States – could also help achieve the above ends.”

Achieving the milestones would mean that by 2020 there would be less waste arisings, far less residual waste, and that incineration would be limited to non-recyclable non-compostable material. It also points towards increased recycling targets, an end to incinerator subsidies (as they are environmentally harmful) and the introduction of incineration taxes (as part of a move towards an increase in environmental taxes).

According to the European Commission’s 5 December 2012 European Resource Efficiency Platform Recommendations for short-term priorities, under the theme of “Specific incentives for reducing waste (targets, pricing, fiscal, eliminating residual waste)” it was stated that: “It should be investigated whether it would be useful to extend landfill and incineration taxes or bans (especially of recyclable and bio-degradable waste)”. According to the document, “the identification – through Member States’ reporting – and phasing out of environmentally harmful subsidies were seen as a clear priority;”.

Indeed, “Abolishing environmentally harmful subsidies and tax-breaks that waste public money on obsolete practices” is part of the 17 December 2012 Manifesto for a Resource-efficient Europe adopted by Janez Potočnik and other members of the European Resource Efficiency Platform.

The 22 November 2012 ‘First recommendations to Sherpas’ from Working Group III of the European Resource Efficiency Platform included discussions of the prospect for “Member States to introduce waste charging, taxes on landfilling and incineration of waste, and encourage recycling and re-use, ensuring that all major groups of users contribute adequately” and a “CO2 tax on non-ETS sectors” (which would presumably include the incineration of plastics as that involves the release of fossil CO2 but is not part of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme).

Meanwhile, the First Report of Working Group I stated that the Working Group showed support for: “The introduction of landfill and incineration taxes or bans (especially of recyclable and bio-degradable waste) that are properly enforced”. The report also notes that the view was expressed that: “EU subsidies should be linked to resource efficiency criteria, without creating a new level of conditionality that could hamper access for the poorest regions. In particular, no more incinerators should be built with EU funding, especially cohesion funds.”

Appendix 6 of the November 2012 Impact Assessment to The Commission proposal for a new general Union Environment Action Programme to 2020: identifies incineration subsidies as a barrier to the implementation of the waste hierarchy: “Concerning the application of market-based instruments aiming at creating the economic conditions to support the waste hierarchy, the main challenges are related to: …In some MS [member states], presence of harmful subsidies (e.g. to support incineration);…”

As UKWIN reported in September 2012, Janez Potočnik has also stated that: “…There are two major objectives we need to pursue. Obviously, landfill rates must go down as quickly as possible, but it is also important to switch from energy recovery to increased recycling. Plastic recycling rates are far too low across Europe with an average of just 24 per cent. Today, even in countries with high recovery rates, there is simply not enough plastic available for recycling because most of it goes to energy recovery. A dominance of energy recovery over recycling is not acceptable in the medium-term