Hazardous Waste Incineration
Hazardous Waste Incineration (HWI) is used to describe those facilities specifically designed for treating hazardous waste. Such facilities typically use a rotary kiln design that operates at temperatures above 1100 degrees centigrade along with a highly-advanced flue gas cleaning system. Wherever possible, energy is recovered during the incineration process and used to generate electricity or to produce steam (for either industrial or district heating uses). Hazardous waste incinerators operate to, and comply with, the strictest emission limits of any industry in the European Union, with state-of-the-art facilities combined with experienced and well-trained operators.
HWI plays a prominent role in destroying and eliminating pollutants from hazardous and special wastes. This capacity makes HWI indispensable realising a viable and reliable circular economy.
This is particularly important, as certain hazardous wastes cannot be destroyed by any other means than high temperature incineration. For example:
- Refrigerants containing Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which deplete the ozone layer;
- Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which do not biodegrade once they enter the food chain, instead building up in fatty tissue;
- Certain cyanide-containing wastes, which accumulate in the environment and pose a risk to human health and ecosystems.
This means that without the option of HWI, some industries could not operate in an environmentally-acceptable manner and as a result would lose their license to operate.
HWI also plays a vital role in cleaning up disused and/or abandoned contaminated industrial sites.