Page 29 - Waste-to-Energy in the Danube Strategy Region. Challenges and Prospects

2.4 Technical & environmental

Generally, technical and environmental challenges are understood to include the difficulty of

choosing cost-effective technologies suitable for local conditions and potential negative
environmental impacts (Pan et al. 2015). The primary technical challenge concerns the

composition of the waste itself, while the main environmental impact regards associated

emissions. Various tools exist for addressing these issues.

One of the key technical problems relates to waste composition. The composition of waste
may vary from year to year and region to region, and WtE technology needs to adjust accordingly.

For WtE facilities, the primary concern is the calorific value of the waste stream being used. Too

low or too high a calorific value can have negative technical impacts on a facility, while specific

types of waste may also cause physiochemical damage, thus impacting operating costs.
Furthermore, a shift towards recycling can impact the calorific value of collected MSW due to

separate collection of different types of waste, in some cases resulting in lower calorific values for

MSW at the point of collection. On the other hand, not all waste collected for recycling is actually

recyclable and waste sent to WtE facilities from separation and sorting facilities has high calorific
3
value especially because of the presence of unrecyclable plastics (Suzova 2018). Careful
consideration of the available waste stream is therefore critical for any WtE project.

The second challenging aspect of this technology is its environmental impact, specifically

4
the production of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and dioxins. Waste incinerators used to be
one of the major contributors of dioxins and other emissions until the late 1990s when the toxic

effects of dioxins were discovered and steps were taken to reduce their emissions through a

system of filters and barriers (Psomopoulos et al. 2009). Although WtE is therefore no longer a

significant source of dioxins, WtE facilities are still subject to strict emissions limits. The challenge
in this regard is to accurately measure all emissions, with which WtE facilities tend to struggle

because the deviation of analysers is often larger than the strictly defined limits (Suzova 2018). On

3 Plastic content can be maximally 3%, which is a very low amount that is hard to mix well with other waste.
4 Dioxins are highly toxic and ubiquitous compounds that are persistent, bioaccumulative and cause a wide scale of
reproductive, developmental, hormonal or immune system problems. They are products of chemical processes, such as
incineration, but there are also natural sources, such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires (WTO 2016).
Project co-funded by the European Union
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