Incineration

Within waste terms Incineration is a form of waste treatment which involves the combustion of waste materials, typically Municipal Solid Waste.

Typically, incineration plant combustion temperatures are in excess of 850°C and the waste is converted into carbon dioxide and water. Any non-combustible materials (e.g. metals, glass) remain as a solid, known as Bottom Ash, which contains a small amount of residual carbon.

In legal terms, a ‘waste incineration plant’ means any stationary or mobile technical unit and equipment dedicated to the thermal treatment of waste, with or without recovery of the combustion heat generated.

Therefore, the activity is termed Incineration, whether the thermal treatment of the waste is via Conventional Combustion, Pyrolysis, Gasification or indeed Plasma process, if the gases resulting from the treatment are subsequently incinerated. As an example, a Pyrolysis facility that burnt the produced Syngas to generate electricity would be Incineration, whereas a Pyrolysis facility that processed Syngas for vehicle fuel would not.

The standards for emissions limits, monitoring, waste reception and treatment standards that are acceptable for waste incineration plants were set in the Waste Incineration Directive (2000/76/EC) and updated in the Industrial Emissions Directive (2010/75/EU). The Industrial Emissions Directive provides the framework for regulating across the EU and requires such installations to hold a Permit based on the use of Best Available Technique (BAT).

On the 3rd December 2019 new EU standards were published for waste incineration for new emissions, monitoring and efficiency standards. The new specifications stem from a review of Best Available Technique (BAT) Reference Document (BREF) for Waste Incineration.