Municipal refuse

The geosphere receives many kinds and large amounts of wastes. Its ability to cope with such wastes with minimal damage is an important part of the geosphere s natural capital. A variety of wastes, ranging from large quantities of relatively innocuous municipal refuse to much smaller quantities of potentially lethal radioactive wastes, are deposited on land or in landfills. These are addressed briefly in Sections 11.9.1 and 11.9.2. 

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R. E. Kaiser, "Physical-Chemical Character of Municipal Refuse," Proceedings of the 1975 International Symposium on Energy Recovey from Refuse, University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky., 1975. 

Scrap from municipal refuse may be in the form of source-separated steel cans, a mixed ferrous fraction, metal magnetically separated from mixed waste or incinerator ash, and C D debris. An ASTM specification (E1134-86) was developed in 1991 for source-separated steel cans. The Steel Recycling Institute has a descriptive steel can specification entitled "Steel Can Scrap Specifications". PubHshed standards for municipal ferrous scrap also include ASTM E701-80, which defines chemical and physical test methods, and ASTM E702-85 which covers the chemical and physical requirements of ferrous scrap for several scrap-consurning industries. 

Combustion Combustion of industrial and municipal waste is an attractive waste management option because it reduces the volume of waste by 70 to 90 percent. In the face of shrinking landfill availabihty, municipal waste combustion capacity in the United States has grown at an astonishing rate, significantly faster than the growth rate for municipal refuse generation. 

Types of Combustors The three main classes of facilities used to combust municipal refuse are mass burn, modular, and RDF-fired facilities. Mass-burn combustors are field erected and generally range in size from 50 to 1000 tons/day of refuse feed per unit (Fig. 25-64). Modular combustors burn waste with little more pre-... 

At the Taylor Road landfill (originally intended for the disposal of municipal refuse only), unknown quantities of hazardous wastes from industrial and residential sources were deposited. During the period when the landfill was active, soil and groundwater samples collected at the site were found to contain concentrations of volatile organic compounds and metals above acceptable safe drinking water standards. Analysis of samples collected from private drinking water wells indicated that contamination... 

This paper introduces the Twin-Interchanging Fluidised Bed Incinerator (TIF) from EBARA Corp. of Japan, and describes a combustion test carried out by the company in collaboration with the Plastic Waste Management Institute, on waste plastic separated from municipal refuse, verifying the level of non-polluting combustion and high-efliciency energy recovery. The results of the test are presented, with considerations and conclusions. JAPAN... 

Chemical compatibility tests using U.S. EPA Method 909040 should always be performed for hazardous waste sites, but some municipal waste sites also contain hazardous, nondegradable materials. U.S. EPA conducted a 5-year study of the impact of municipal refuse on commercially available liner materials and found no evidence of deterioration within that period. However, in a current study of leachate quality in municipal landfills, the Agency has discovered some organic chemical constituents normally found in hazardous waste landfill facilities. Apparently, small quantities of household hazardous waste enter municipal sites or are disposed of as small quantity generator wastes. As a result of these findings, U.S. EPA developed a position on the need for chemical compatibility tests for thousands of municipal waste disposal sites. 

Hortenstine CG, Rothwell DF (1973) Pelletized municipal refuse compost as a soil amendment and nutrient source of sorghum. J Environ Qual 2 343-345 Hue NV, Ikawa H, Silva JA (1994) Increasing plant available phosphorus in an ultisol with a yard waste compost. Commun Soil Sci Plant Anal 25 3291-3303 Iyamuremye F, Dick RP, Baham J (1996) Organic amendments and phosphorus dynamics I. 

Preston, G.T., Resource Recovery and Flash Pyrolysis of Municipal Refuse, in Symposium Papers Clean Fuels from... 

Schulz, Helmut W., "Energy from Municipal Refuse A... 

Particulates of metallic silver emitted from the burining of fossil fuels and municipal refuse are likely to become coated with silver oxide, silver sulfide, and silver carbonate as the particles cool and undergo deposition (Smith and Carson 1977). 

Gonzalez-Vila, F. J., and Martin, F. (1985). Cehmical structural characteristics of humic acids extracted from composted municipal refuse. Agric. Ecosyst Environ. 14, 267-278. 

Beychok MR. 1987. A data base of dioxin and furan emissions from municipal refuse incinerators. Atmos Environ 21 29-36. 

Karasek FW, Dickson LC. 1987. Model studies of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin formation during municipal refuse incineration. Science 237 754-756. 

Alarie Y, Iwasaki M, Stock MF, et al. 1989. Effects of inhaled municipal refuse incinerator fly ash in the guinea pig. J Toxicol Environ Health 28 13-25. 

TABLE B5 Higher Heating Value of Municipal Refuse (kj/kg)... 

Kocan, A., Bencko, V, Sixl, W. Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs) in the hair of people living on municipal refuse dumping sites in Cairo (Egypt). Toxicology and Environmental Chemistry, 36 33-37 (1992). 

The program involved leaching selected industrial chemical process residuals with leachate derived from municipal refuse in a pilot-scale field facility measuring the concentration of the compounds which leached from the wastes and comparing these field concentrations to those in the EP and other candidate leaching tests. The Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure or TCLP, is the outgrowth of these studies. 

Bache CA, Gutenmann WH, Rutzke M, et al. 1991. Concentrations of metals in grasses in the vicinity of a municipal refuse incinerator. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 20 538-542. 

Mumma RO, Raupach DC, Sahadewan K, et al. 1991. Variation in the elemental composition of municipal refuse incinerator ashes with time of sampling. Chemosphere 23 391-395. 

Converti, A., DelBorghi, A., Zilli, M., Arni, S., and DelBorghi, M. (1999). Anaerobic digestion of the vegetable fraction of municipal refuses mesophilic versus thermophilic conditions. Bioprocess Eng. 21,371-376. 

Origin / Industry Sources/Uses Prepared by the chlorination of biphenyl used in the electrical industry in capacitors and transformers used in the formulation of lubricating and cutting oils pesticides adhesives plastics inks paints sealants. Exposure Routes Inhalation of fume or vapor percutaneous adsorption of liquid ingestion eye and skin contact landfills containing PCB waste materials and products incineration of municipal refuse and sewage sludge waste transformer fluid disposal to open areas. 

Jones, J.L., "The Costs for Processing Municipal Refuse and Sludge," paper presented at the Fifth National Conference on Acceptable Sludge Disposal Techniques, Orlando, FL, January 31, 1978. 

The only commercially operating municipal refuse systems in Europe known to these researchers which are not mass burners... 

SELECTED INSTALLATIONS OF SHOP-FABRICATED INCINERATORS BURNING MUNICIPAL REFUSE (SINCE 1974)... 

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