Waste to energy: investigation, technologies and evaluation system

Supported by the on going project on "Sustainable Solid Waste Landfill Management in Asia" under the Asian Regional Research Programme on Environmental Technology funded by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and Coordinated by Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, a combined waste-to-energy (WTE) process has been developed in China. In this research two fresh and five aged municipal solid wastes (MSW) samples were investigated and characterized. Based on the analysis of results, suggestions were proposed for the proper WTE system with aged MSW from dumpsites and landfills and fresh MSW considered together. The WTE process included hierarchy of recycling plastics from fresh MSW as raw material and recycling combustibles from aged MSW as RDF. To recycle the plastics from fresh MSW, separation and purification system have been set up and their energy consumption was counted.Two analysis tools including life cycle assessment (LCA) and cost benefit analysis (CBA) have been adopted for the WTE system evaluation. Based on the necessary data collected during investigation process, LCA was carried out for RDF production from aged MSW and utilization in fresh MSW incinerator; and CBA was performed for plastics recycling from fresh MSW; good results have been obtained from those evaluations suggested the proposed WTE processes are promising.