Environmental aspects of heavy-metal atmospheric pollution in disposal of household solid waste

Abstract

The problem of disposal of refuse (household solid waste) has become especially important in the last decade. This is not only because of the increase in the quantity of refuse but also because o f the qualitative change in the composition of household solid waste: in recent years, the amount by weight of heavy metals and synthetic materials has increased. Considering the high toxicity of heavy metals and the strict standards for permissible emission of heavy metals, the problem of estimating the specific amount of emitted heavy metals when incinerating unsorted refuse in refuse incineration furnaces becomes an important problem. Such an estimate will make it possible to provide a scientific basis for the requirements for efficiency of collecting equipment. We know that in the Russian Federation in 1996, as a result of sanitation refuse removal in cities. 130 million cubic meters of household solid waste was generated, of which only 3 % was disposed of by commercial methods safeguarding the environment of the urbanized areas. Most of the household solid waste was stored in various types of dumps, occupying an area of about I0,000 hectares [I]. The amount and composition of household solid waste depend considerably on the geographic location of the population center and furthermore is continuously changing for the given locality over the course of a day, a week, or a month. The average breakdown Moscow (denominator) are [2]: