Waste_Incineration_China 垃圾焚烧.pdfVIP

Waste Incineration in China page 1 Figure 1: Visit to MWI in Harbin Waste Incineration in China Balz Solenthaler, Rainer Bunge Summary China currently operates 19 municipal waste incinerators (MWI) with a total daily capacity of approximately 7,000 tons (December 2002 status)1. This is about 2% of all the municipal solid waste being produced in China. Most of these systems are grate technology. Because of the low calorific value of the waste (approx. 5 MJ/kg), incineration on a fluidized bed and the addition of hard coal is also wide-spread. The flue gas cleaning is done using dry or semi dry systems. This is part of the findings of a Swiss student of the Hochschule Rapperswil (HSR) who studied the status of waste incineration in China. During his 3 month term in Beijing, he had the opportunity to talk with local authorities and the operators of municipal waste incinerators. He also had the opportunity of visiting several incineration plants and to draw samples from the residues for further analysis. This work revealed that the heavy metal levels in the residue from the municipal waste incinerators are clearly much lower than those in Switzerland. One exception is mercury; its relatively high levels in the slag leaves room for interpretation and speculation. Because of the data that was collected, we cannot exclude the possibility that some Chinese municipal waste incinerators might even emit mercury into the environment. Appreciation This working visit to China was initiated by umtec (Institute for Applied Environmental Technology) at the Hochschule Rapperswil (HSR). The work on site was carried under the auspices of the Center for Environmentally Sound Technology Transfer (CESTT), a Chinese Non Profit Organization. Umtec would like to thank its Chinese partners as well as the local authorities and the owners/operators of the municipal waste incinerators for their participation and especially for