Waste Management & Research (1984) 2, 279-288

REPORTS AND REVIEWS

REPORT: REPORT OF THE 11th BIENNIAL NATIONAL WASTE PROCESSING CONFERENCE AND EXHIBIT spommred by American Society of Me&mica1 Engineering (ASME), Orlando, Florida, 3-6 June 1984. Reported by R. B. Dean.

This meeting was organized by the Solid Waste Processing Division of ASME with the theme “Engineering: The Solution”. Sixty papers were presented in five half-dai sessions, there was one special evening technical session and one luncheon talk. Special topics included Air Pollution Control and Hazardous Wastes. The Proceedings (preprints) are available from ASME P.O. Box 3199 Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163. for $125.

The special evening session on Dioxin was devoted to the problem of the production of 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, (TCDD) and related tetrachlorodibenzofurans (TCDF) in resource recovery furnaces. Four years ago the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pointed out that emissions of TCDD etc. might severely limit the usefulness of refuse derived fuel. David Sussman, who presented the EPA fears at that time, was a member of the panel that discussed the current status of the problem. The consensus of the panel was that dioxins are not a significant problem if combustion conditions are good, the temperature is high and CO is kept low. The EPA view is that the risk from dioxin formation is so much less than from other hazardous wastes that no more funds will be applied to studies of their formation during incineration. While it has been generally acknowledged that dioxins are a possible by-product of the synthesis of chlorinated aromatic chemicals, it has only recently been recognized that combustion of ordinary wastes containing wood, salt and acids can produce traces of dioxins. Chlorine is produced from oxygen and chlorides, and reacts with aromatics from lignin. The traces are, however, very small under proper incinerating conditions. It was also pointed out that dioxin production could be increased a thousand times under poor incineration conditions. Dr Clinton Kemp referred to the “gloom, doom and fear” at the meeting four years ago and contrasted it with the present meeting where most of the same people agree that now we know why dioxins form and how to keep them low. He said “Properly designed and operated (waste incineration) plants are unlikely to become public health hazards”.

The importance of proper design, good operating conditions and generous operator training in meeting even ordinary air pollution standards was exemplified by a paper on a small energy-from-waste plant on Prince Island, Canada. R. N. Reilly of Tricil, who presented the paper, was asked why no specific air filters or other air pollution control equipment was included in the project. He replied that the relatively quiet combustion conditions without strong mechanical action together with proper attention to air-fuel ratios produced a stack gas that met the Canadian standards.

The last session, on miscellaneous topics, had an interesting paper on maximizing methane production from landfills by S. Gosh of the Institute of Gas, Technology. Essentially it involves intentional forced recycle of leachate through the landfill and reduction of volatile fatty acids in an outside.upflow anaerobic reactor. Recovery times of 30 days, comparable to that obtained in sewage sludge digesters, have been obtained.

280 Reports and reviews

Obviously the present design of sanitary landfills with nearly impermeable clay liners between cells is incompatable with the rapid leachate recirculation necessary to maximize methane production.

An interesting historical paper by C. O’Connor described the Pasadena, California, mass burning incinerator that operated from 1927 to 1967. This was the first incinerator to generate electricity from waste and it was visited by many European engineers who were designing waste incineration systems for heat recovery. The Pasadena plant was closed when oil prices were at their lowest and the neighbouring City of Los Angeles opened a very large low-cost landfill.

Written discussions on all papers were solicited by the respective chairmen and will eventually be available from the ASME. The accompanying exhibition presented only a few novel devices. In common with the papers at the meeting the emphasis was on proper engineering, design and planning. “We know how to do it, let’s get on with the job”.

BOOK REVIEW: RESOURCE RECOVERY ECONOMICS. METHODS FOR FEASIBILITY ANALYSES. By Stuart H. Russell. Marcel Dekker, IIX., Polhdion Eqineering and Technology/ZZ, New York, NY 10016, U.S.A. (1983) 298 pp. Price: SW. Fr. 118 Reviewed by Lizzi Andersen, Rambell & HaMlemaM, Consuiti~ Engineers and PIanners A/S, Denmark.

This book on resource recovery economics and feasibility analysis by Stuart H. Russel, a consulting engineer in the solid waste management field, consist of seven chapters on the subject. In Chapter 1 the purpose of the book is put forward together with some definitions and an overall description of economic analysis methodology. General data requirements on amount of waste, waste composition and transport methods and examples of sources of these data are given in Chapter 2. Methods for identification of markets for the recovered energy and/or materials are then described in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 consist of an overview of available treatment methods, while Chapter 5 gives a variety of information about costs of the different elements in the total solid waste handling system. Methods of systems analysis based on the present worth method and the uniform annual cost method are presented in Chapter 6, and finally implementation planning is discussed in Chapter 7.

As a main feature a hypothetical example is given throughout all the chapters illustrating the use of the overall method described in the book.

The purpose of the book is to give municipal officials a method for comparing total solid waste management systems in a professional way, thus avoiding incomplete feasibility studies leading to wrong or no decisions and hopefully in this way leading to the implementation of higher quality resource recovery systems.

The title “Resource Recovery Economics” may-at least to a European-be a bit misleading, since most of the information given concerning waste treatment is about incineration with different types of energy recovery, and not very much about materials recovery. Also source separation is not included-which is noted by the author in Chapter l-and methods of recovery of plastic and paper are not described, since “although experimental separation technology exists for these materials, there are no full-scale plants which separate these materials in a marketable form from mixed municipal refuse in operation at present” (p. 75). Generally, the book relates to North