ENERGY RECOVERY FROM MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTES AND SECONDARY RECOVERED FUELS: CASE STUDIES

摘要

The amount of the municipal solid waste (MSW) increases all over the world as a consequence of growing urbanization and the standard of living. A remarkable amount of this waste contains materials, such as paper, glass, metals, wood and plastics, which can efficiently be recycled for resource recovery. But not all the MSW can be recycled and, moreover, the waste recycling processes always generate significant amounts of residues, in some cases having very high heating values. It is today recognized that in a fully sustainable waste management system no one process is suitable for all waste streams. In other words, no single waste management practice can handle the full array of waste types and, at the same time, satisfy all the recognized criteria of an integrated and sustainable management system: to minimize use of landfills and ensure that no landfilled waste is biologically active or contains mobile hazardous substances; to minimize operations that entail excessive consumption of raw materials and energy without yielding an overall environmental advantage; to maximize recovery of materials; and to maximize energy recovery for materials that cannot be efficiently recycled, in order to save both landfill volumes and fossil-fuel resources.