Comparison of Organic Emissions from Hazardous Waste Incinerators versus the 1990Toxic Release Inventory Air Releases

摘要

Incineration is often the preferred technology for disposing of hazardous wasteand remediating Superfund sites. The effective implementation of the technology is frequently impeded by strong public opposition to hazardous waste incineration (HWI). One of the reasons cited for this opposition is the perception that the emission of organics pose an unreasonable threat to human health. In order to put organic emissions in perspective, the mass of these emissions from the incineration of hazardous waste on a national scale has been estimated using 'reasonable worst-case' assumptions and compared to the 1990 Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) air releases. Comparisons were made for 15 carcinogenic organic