Incineration and energy recovery from waste materials: Assessment of environmental impact of emitted gases

• Main Authors: Oludaisi Adekomaya, Thokozani Majozi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Khon Kaen University 2020-11-01
• Series: Engineering and Applied Science Research
• Subjects: waste; emissions; energy; treatments; minimization
• Online Access: https://ph01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/easr/article/download/240030/165399/

Energy recovery from waste materials is a herculean task in view of its impact on the environment. Waste materials are becoming increasingly cumbersome considering huge proportion of synthetic materials being used for product formation and developmental projects. The process of energy recovery from these wastes serve to reduce significant quantity that would not be naturally decomposed thereby declining their influence on the safe environment. While global fossil fuel energy is finite in nature, this process provides alternative sources of energy in an environmentally friendly manner. The treatment process of waste to energy has no doubt increase the vulnerability of environment to climate change, among other methods. Studies have shown that waste generated from urban areas globally will increase from about 3.5 million tonnes per day to 6.1 million tonnes per day by 2025. These increasing waste volumes will definitely require the application of sophisticated incinerators to evolve alternative energy that could be used for basic needs. In this paper, the authors access the environmental impact of waste-to-energy recovery taking into considering the existing approaches, as per waste volume and available incinerating plants. The paper also identifies various waste gases associated with incinerating plants which could compromise environment and increase biodiversity dislocation. All these concerns were x-rayed as part of the suggestions to improve material formation towards biodegradability. Taking into consideration how long synthetic materials would continue in industrial space, this paper proposes a countermeasure which could be useful to stabilize the existing energy recovery process while hoping for full adaptation of sustainable and eco-friendly green materials.