Influence of Recycling on the Incinerability of Municipal Solid Waste

Material and energy recovery are vital elements of an integrated municipal solid waste (MSW) management scheme. Although recycling is an environment-friendly alternative for waste management, higher waste generation rates necessitate faster treatment techniques like incineration. The viability of waste incineration nevertheless, depends on the incinerability of the feed to furnace. To prevent operational failures, it becomes quintessential to ensure the incinerability of the MSW feed. To facilitate this decision-making, the incinerability index or i-Index, a tool to quantify incinerability on a scale of 0-100 and determine the feasibility of incineration has been devised by the authors. This paper focusses on the estimation of incinerability of MSW when different components are recovered for recycling. MSW generated in a developed country like USA and metro like Delhi in India, a developing country, with relatively high waste generation and recycling rates were considered for the study. i-Index value for raw MSW generated in USA was computed as 72.54 using USEPA data while MSW generated in South Delhi had lower i-Index of 66.7. After maximum material recovery, i-Index of residual MSW in USA amounted to 68.8, in contrast to MSW in Delhi, which amounted to 49.7. Although recycling of combustible fractions adversely affects the incinerability, it was counter balanced by the recovery of food fraction for composting resulting in a mild increase in incinerability. Variation in i-Index and thus the incinerability with the recycling of different components are investigated for assessing the feasibility of incineration of the residual MSW.