Rod White sent me two comments with very valuable information about incinerators and alternatives. Reading Rod Whites comments, his links and others articles, I now think it is important to look closer at our “green” incinerators here in Sweden as well as look for alternatives.

Here are the links Rod gave us about air pollution problematics:

• Air Pollution and Health — C. Arden Pope. Video
  
• Health Effects of Fine Particulate Air Pollution: Lines that Connect. C. Arden Pope and Douglas W. Dockery. Power Point and Article
• Dr. Dick van Steenis MBBS Report for Public Inquiry regarding Newhaven proposed incinerator site. Nov 2007

Rods links to alternatives

• Plasco Group: Plasma Arc Gasification
• Greenfinch - The UK’s Anaerobic Digestion & Biogas Specialists FoE and Eunomia Consulting approved Anarobic Digestion
• Sustainable Resource Management: MBT/AD - dry MBT/AD
• The ArrowBio Process: Wet MBT/AD FoE approved

Looking around I found a link to the Centre for Organic Waste Management. The DiCom’s biological process, according to an old article is probably being used in Perth in Australia: “The inner Perth suburb of Shenton Park is set to boast a leading edge municipal waste processing facility that by 2005 could be transforming 55 000 tonnes of garbage per annum to yield green electricity and compost–both lucrative end products.“(1) There seems to be facilities in Germany and Austria using similar techniques. But I had difficulties in finding information about these.

The question

The question I have is about the incinerator in Acerra near Neaple, that will be ready for production next year. Beppe Grillo and Italian ambientalists want to stop the building of this incinerator. Is this a wise move? I understand that the building of new modern facilities, requires much more than one year and the problem in Campania does not allow another 5 years of “camorra waste treatment”. As I red somewhere, in Italy, only around Neaple there is a rise in cancer cases. Grass eating (!) animals are dying there because of poisons and most probably, Napolitan meat, the famous Napolitan peaches and mozarellas are dangerous to eat. (Look at the presentation of the documentary Biùtiful Cauntri) Wouldn’t Acerra be a short term move in the right direction, that means to lower overall poison emissions and decrease ambient related sickness in the region?

I totally agree that inciniterators like the one in Acerra is not a final solution. I think that the best strategy is that garbage must not be mixed at the source, in fact should they be separated from the source in the homes, in the factories etc. The Comunity of Acerra is working hard with this now. Many Italian cities are very good with that with up to 71% garbage separated. Look at Comuni Ricicloni and this document at page 26.

I think of course that we must recycle our resources (food garbage, paper, plastics, aluminium, glass etc) and make adequate poison treatment (from batteries, PVC etc). Neaple and Italy should plan for alternatives to incinerators and maybe let the incinerators end up burning biofuels.