Environmental monitoring analysis of municipal solid waste incineration in Europe and the needs for changes in brazilian legislation

Abstract

Incineration is a solid waste treatment technology whose main purpose is to reduce the volume and mass of the waste to be disposed of in landfills. The incinerators built in the last decades bring the possibility of energy recovery from waste, in the form of steam and/or electric energy. However, this technology still raises questions about possible environmental impacts related to its emissions. Incineration is regulated in Europe through specific legislation which, among other issues, requires the disclosure of environmental monitoring data for incinerators. In the present work, atmospheric emissions data from incinerators associated with the Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants (CEWEP) are analyzed by searching the websites of the respective incinerators, scientific articles and technical reports. Monitoring data on all continuous and periodic measured pollutants defined in the legislation in time series from 2010 to 2017 were analyzed. All annual average emission values of the incinerators analyzed were below the limits defined by the European Union's Directive, with little variation over the observed years. The comparison of European with Brazilian emission standards shows the need for a change in local legislation on incineration so that, if this technology is implemented in Brazil, it will operate within safe limits, with a guarantee of minimizing impacts on the environment and surrounding populations.

Keywords:
waste treatment; municipal solid waste incineration; environmental monitoring; atmospheric emissions