After visiting some Waste Incineration plants in Denmark this past summer I wanted to learn more about them. How practical are they? The ones that I toured seemed all in all legit, clean, and efficient. They claimed that the smoke was filtered through flying ash filters, and water scrubbers to cleanse most of or nearly all the pollutants. Their smoke stacks were 95%-100% water vapor.
To curb the amount of waste actually burned, the government promotes recycling by taxing the plant for each ton of waste it burns. The plant pays for and provides advertising and education in the community to encourage recycling by the citizens, a type of indirect invesment. They have easy access drop off sites for recycling, and of course recycling pick ups. Similar to how we do in America.
To help compensate for this tax on incineration, the plant uses the recycled materials as an alternative revenue by selling concrete, metals, plastics, paper, and bio refuge back into the market.
This tax also promotes efficiency of the actual plants production of electricity and heat. If you have to pay to burn, then their end production must be as efficient as possible to maximize profits. Most of the plants that I saw were 90%+ efficient in utilizing the energy from burning waste. 50-60% of that generated electricity, the remaining energy is pumped through the water system for hot water in their cities. They call this Combined Power and Heat.
Probably the most important parts to incinerating waste is to reduce the actual waste that is placed in a landfill. In the plant I visited the ratio of waste burned to unusable, un-recyclable ash was (to be entered later when I find my notes). This ash, the flying ash, is transported to a hazardous dumping site, a step down from radioactive. Yes the pollutants still exist. However, if they can be minimized like this, and dumped properly, this will extend the longevity of communities to staying clean, and relatively toxin free while still being able to produce electricity.
When I started reading about how waste incineration works in America, I was quite startled. I’m still researching this one and will write later about the differences. So far, they are mostly for the worse.
