Overview of municipal waste incineration industry in west Europe (based on the German experience)

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the current status of the waste-to-energy activities in the west European countries, outlining the demand for municipal waste incineration and the development in the design of the combustion system as well as in the air pollution control system. Trend setter in the technical development over the last 10 years have been the emissions regulations for waste incinerators. As an example the Dutch, Austrian, Swiss, German and EC-legislation is compared with the current state-of-the-art flue gas treatment technology and its achievable emission values. The boost of new technologies was mainly created by the dramatic tightening of these emissions legislation. The second part of the paper details the status of air pollution control technologies currently being used. Various four to five stage flue gas cleaning processes, including the recovery of marketable products from the residuals, are covered. Hence not only the minimization of stack emissions is politically pursued. The requirement of resource recovery from residuals has become more and more a major criteria for the design of flue gas treatment processes. This paper explores the process technologies used in achieving this goal as well as giving an outlook on novel concepts aiming for even higher rates of recovery and better quality products. The paper concludes with a listing of the major technology vendors and with some economical/ecological aspects of waste incineration plants equipped with modern combustion and air pollution control technology.