FADING BARRIERS? - ONSITE INCINERATION AND THERMAL TREATMENT UNIT OPERATIONS IN THE ITALIAN INDUSTRIAL WASTE SECTOR

摘要

Latest Environmental Impact Assessment files regarding insitu incinerators show that Italian authorities are aware of the environmental/energy benefits of a robust onsite incineration infrastructure: closing cycles, reducing effluents at source, releasing pressures on road transport to off-site disposal, allowing companies to exert control over the waste management cycle, recovering heat and, if possible, turning unwanted byproducts into co-products. At operational level, the key players are hydrocarbon and petrochemical complexes responsible for large-amount waste production, but the dissemination of compentence on production processes and related waste management issues (prevention, minimisation, best available end-of-pipe techniques) is advancing and making it possible for specialised servicers to make their entry and adopt a third-party business model similar to that of TERIS (Sita-Suez Environment Group) in Western Europe. Multipurpose boilers application to high calorific waste feed such as wood chips, paper and rubber waste, is due to rise with growing need for decentralised combined heat and power (CHP) capacity. Finally, materials provided for critical parts of the plants' layout have been investigated but very few elements point to growing interests for waste incineration as an application market; this highlights a temporary unbalance in offer-demand bridging, at least in the medium term, since Italy is home to the third largest oleodynamic sector in the world, behind Germany and Japan.