An assessment of realistic emissions from municipal, medical, and hazardous waste incinerators

Valid stack emissions measurements, resulting from burning actual wastes in commercial combustors with appropriate emissions control technology under usual operating conditions, must be used to assess the impact of organic and metals emissions from contemporary waste combustion systems on the environment. Unfortunately, emissions measurements at hazardous waste incinerators are usually made under trial-burn test conditions that are contrived to replicate worst case permit conditions, with feeds of organics and metals great enough to measure emissions control systems and destruction and removal efficiency. Testing at municipal waste combustors and medical waste incinerators, on the other hand, is conducted under normal operating conditions, but permitted values are higher values to prevent exceedances due to statistical chance. Risks and environmental impacts based on elevated trial-burn and permitted levels lead to unrealistically high emissions estimates. Nevertheless, current estimates of emissions from waste combustion indicate that its total contribution is far less than 1% of known U.S. dioxin loadings. Therefore, the attention focused on these sources is probably misplaced.