Environmental Engineering FOURTH EDITION

Process

Air

Waste Incineration

Fuel

Emission

effluent

control

media

Hazardous Waste 305

output

Emission Liquidhlid

effluent discharge

control

recovery medium recovery

Quench medium Quench

-I-

Figure 15-3. Waste incineration system.

Figure 15-3 shows the schematic of a generalized incineration system that includes

the components of a waste incineration system. The actual system, which may contain

one or more of the components, is usually dependent upon the individual waste’s

application requirement. The advantages of incineration as a means of disposal for

hazardous waste are:

1. Burning wastes and fuels in a controlled manner has been carried on for many
   years and the basic process technology is available and reasonably well developed.
   This is not the case for some of the more exotic chemical degradation processes.


2. Incineration is broadly applicable to most organic wastes and can be scaled to
   handle large volumes of liquid waste.


3. Incineration is the best known method for disposal of “mixed waste” (see previous
   description).


4. Large expensive land areas are not required.

The disadvantages of incineration include:

1. The equipment tends to be more costly to operate than many other alternatives,
   and the process must meet the stringent regulatory requirements of air pollution control.


2. It is not always a means of ultimate disposal in that normally an ash remains that
   may or may not be toxic but that in any case must be disposed of properly and with
   minimal environmental contamination.