Waste Incinerators

gman

gman

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Graham
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Does anyone know anything about these things? Talking about the commercial/industrial £150M+ scale ones which take in hundreds of tons of waste that would have gone to landfill, is the technology good enough these days to eliminate pollution and toxins from them?
 
gman said:
Are there any issues with pollution?
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Probably, but is it better than landfill. Landfill produces methane for energy production, but you do have to manage the water runoff
Compressing and turning the black bag waste into fuel also generate power, heat (both saleable) but with ash as a by product
 
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Many landfills are slowly closing down, there is only so many holes in the ground you can turn into hills anyway.
So modern burners are the way to go.
Many of the landfill sites have transfer stations where the waste is sorted, some still gets buried, some gets compressed and burnt,
some gets compressed and shipped to France and Germany, where they burn it for fuel generation.
The latest technology, is incredibly "clean burn" as it was explained to me, its something about recycling the burn and re-burning it.
The methane produced from landfills is turned into electricity on site, to power the site, the surplus is put back into the national grid.

The run off liquid is called leachate, (both from decomposing waste and rain fall passing through the landfill)
In its pure form is poisonous, that is taken away and processed I believe, but I know very little about that side of things.
 
I know about some of the local stuff, the leachate is a huge lined pond that is managed on site, but it's nasty stuff. It really has to be managed to be correctly collected into the pools and not run off elsewhere.
http://www.hills-group.co.uk/documents/Waste_Management_Sites_4pp_Leaflet_000.pdf

Interesting about Edmontons incinerator. I grew up in North London and it used to be used to provide heat to local council offices as well as burn the rubbish. Swindon had one as well, but both were shut down (swindons dismantled and removed) as they couldn't meet the emissions control
 
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Byker28i said:
I know about some of the local stuff, the leachate is a huge lined pond that is managed on site, but it's nasty stuff. It really has to be managed to be correctly collected into the pools and not run off elsewhere.
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I've work on landfill sites for years as a bird controller.
And all the sites have a network of underground pipes and pumps, that draw off the leachate, into a lined lagoon,
from there its transferred to holding tanks where its taken away, to be processed,
or sometimes its drawn directly from the lagoons, by suction tankers, and then taken away.

There is a lot more to managing a landfill site, than most people realise TBH.
 
Byker28i said:
Anyone know if we've any of those power stations in the uk?
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Many of the waste recyclers have a "compost section" and
as I understand it, the latest generation of "burners" are for that very purpose.
 
There's a new waste incinerator at the bottom of town. IIRC they had a few teething troubles (think "new exhaust" smell) but AFAIK it's up and running now. The FAQs can be found at http://tiru-uk.co.uk/exeter/faqs/ .
 
Cobra said:
Many of the waste recyclers have a "compost section" and
as I understand it, the latest generation of "burners" are for that very purpose.
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Yup - I know the westbury site lets it sit for two weeks (all computer managed grab sized areas) and the heat effectively composts it. The swindon one uses the tumble drier so needs more power. I think it's low grade fuel though so needs special stuff to burn...
 
Byker28i said:
(all computer managed grab sized areas) and the heat effectively composts it.
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I was in one of the Veolia transfer station sites a year or so back, that was all computer controlled, that was damned impressive!
 
gman said:
Does anyone know anything about these things? Talking about the commercial/industrial £150M+ scale ones which take in hundreds of tons of waste that would have gone to landfill, is the technology good enough these days to eliminate pollution and toxins from them?
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We have one onboard and in theory it is a "clean burner" so the exhaust gas is cycled through the combustion chambers until it reaches +1000C we use it for burning cardboard and oily waste
 
Byker28i said:
Yup - I know the westbury site lets it sit for two weeks (all computer managed grab sized areas) and the heat effectively composts it. ...
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its a process known as anaerobic digestion .. i work in a MBT plant turning household waste into SRF
 
Cobra said:
I was in one of the Veolia transfer station sites a year or so back, that was all computer controlled, that was damned impressive!
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Yup I've seen one, it looks like a huge pile but the computer breaks it all down into sections, time based, brilliant stuff.
 
matt.c said:
its a process known as anaerobic digestion .. i work in a MBT plant turning household waste into SRF
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Interesting, does your plant leave it a while? Does it generate heat to assist with the decomposition, like compost? Wondering if that heat could be harvested as the pile is quite deep. Heat the hot water in the plant, mind you not many people needed to work it?
Do you have any issues with maggots or flies?
 
Byker28i said:
Do you have any issues with maggots or flies?
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Yes it can be quite an issue.
The few that I (or the company I work for) get involved in, they get sprayed both with a lavaecide and a "flying" insecticide.
 
Yea ..The waste is allowed to decompose for 14 days aided by drawing the heat down through the airiated floor using a system of fans to dry it out ..The air then passes through a bio filter ....with the flies ..kinda the same as cobra has stated ...worse in the warm weather
 
Byker28i said:
London etc has some huge centres
http://www.veolia.co.uk/southwark/s...s/2014/10/Turning_waste_into_a_resource_0.pdf
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/118...plant_that_turns_beds_and_sofas_into_compost/

The interesting bit from that echo story is: What is left is a type of compost that can be burnt in a special power station to create electricity to power homes.

Anyone know if we've any of those power stations in the uk?
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I nearly posted the Echo link as I drive past that plant and work around 2 miles as the crow flies from it.

Seems pretty clever stuff if it's all true.
 
Probably stating the obvious here but I'm guessing all the benefits and safety aspects rely on the plants being run properly and no corners being cut?
 
gman said:
Probably stating the obvious here but I'm guessing all the benefits and safety aspects rely on the plants being run properly and no corners being cut?
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I am thinking you might need to offer a tad more help on the kind of information you need?


In general, all this stuff is very impressive and does demonstrate how much goes on with our waste disposal that most of us would know nothing about. Plainly there have been leaps and bounds in the technology applied to it over the years - I recall as a kid, going to 'the tip' which was basically dumping all your stuff over a wall which was then shifted by heavy plant into the huge piles ready to be covered over. I also recall the 'blue' housing estate - there had been a landfill site well before I was born and in my childhood a private housing estate was built in the area. As I got into my early teens, iirc, there was much fuss because on warm days the heat haze in the area had a very slight blue tinge, or so people claimed. testing was carried out and of course, methane was leaching from the site - I think the blue tinge stories might have come about because people expected gas to have a blue tinge, rather than the fact it actually did have one, really not sure. I know the council and experts did lots of work to ensure the safety of the houses, though for the life of me I have no idea what that was.
 
It's only the Incinerators I'm interested in and in particular how the pollution side of them compares from paper to reality. I have a gut feeling that even the modern ones are not as safe as they are made out but looking to find out as much info as possible preferably from real life experiences.
 
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