Incinerator News

Changing attitudes to incineration

Ten years ago, a vociferous outcry against incineration was burgeoning, there was widespread concern that incineration, particularly of medical waste, was causing irreparable harm to our environment and to the ozone layer.

Emotional meetings in public halls and other venues decried the “uncontrollable” emission of cancer forming dioxins and furans, of mercury and other heavy metals and of smells, smoke and soot.

The meetings also made broad statements regarding carbon dioxide emitted from incinerators causing global warming.

He says that in some measure, the opposition to incinerators was justified.

Many antiquated incinerators were in use and these were little more than black boxes with chimneys on top.

The designers, builders, and operators/owners had little or no comprehension of what was happening inside or of the potential for toxic emissions.

The result was that, over the next five or more years, incineration was widely condemned and, in some areas, the installation of new incinerators was banned completely.

It became socially very acceptable to make wild accusations about the mercenary attitude of incinerator users and suppliers alike.

‘Alternative technologies’ were proposed to provide safe disposal of medical waste, some basic and quite logical; others had a tendency to be wild and fanciful, and, almost every one of them avoided any form of combustion.

Many of them had some system to sterilise the waste or to change its shape, form or odour.

The waste was variously steamed, microwaved, pulverised, heated cooled, compressed, kneaded and chemically treated.

Some systems achieved a measure of success in that they were able to sterilise quite effectively and they are still in use today.

The waste is quite often compressed and the equipment manufacturers make rather extravagant claims about reducing ‘the quantity’ of waste by 8% or more. It is found that they were only reducing the volume.

The mass is not reduced and, in some cases, where steam or hot water is used for sterilisation, there is a considerable increase in the mass of waste that ends up on the municipal tip.

Systems that grind, crush or pulverise the waste require expensive maintenance and the main-tenance personnel are often required to work in unhygienic conditions to fix dirty, smelly and contaminated machinery. Thompson believes that the Achilles heel of the majority of the alternative technologies has proved to be the conditions at the tip, and that the appearance of the waste is often most unpleasant.

Waste that has been sterilised at the treatment plant travels to the tip in hot, wet containers where decomposition and putrefaction are rapid. The stench on reaching the tip of the waste is nauseating.

Large volumes are treacherous for vehicles and equipment that skid and slip alarmingly in the mud and undefined liquids (blood, fats and chemical solvents) that have been dumped.

Once buried in the tip, the waste decomposes, and carbon monoxide and methane are given off.

There has been a great outcry against the carbon dioxide emitted from incinerators because carbon dioxide is a ‘greenhouse gas’ and causes global warming.

Unfortunately one kilogram of carbon monoxide does twice as much damage as a kilogram of carbon dioxide.

A kilogram of methane does twenty-five times more damage than the same amount of carbon dioxide.

However, incinerators are very effective in eliminating methane and carbon monoxide.

There are other gases that are much more harmful than these.

The damage per kilogram of chloroform is six-thousand times more, for example.

Incinerators are also extremely effective in destroying gases, such as chloroform.

It has now been widely accepted that incinerators are beneficial in reducing global warming.

Incinerator technology had not been static during the alternative-technology wars.

Superior loading systems, auto-mated combustion control, dry pro-cess neutralisation of acid gases, improved scrubbers, dry, high temperature ceramic filters and a host of other refinements contribute to incinerators that will burn without emitting dangerous levels of dioxins, furans, heavy metals, carbon monoxide, methane or any other harmful substances. From being the pariah of waste-disposal systems incineration has emerged as being the most healthy, environment-friendly, economical and easiest to operate of all.