In Wikipedia, nella versione inglese sugli inceneritori, c’è una foto dell’inceneritore viennese:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:District_heating_plant_spittelau_ssw_crop1.png

L’impianto si chiama Spittelau.

Qui si trova un grafico in tempo reale delle emissioni dell’inceneritori in questione:

http://www.fernwaermewien.at/umweltwerte/emissionen/spittelau.htm

Il sito dell’inceneritore: http://www.fernwaermewien.at/

Un documento di GreenPeace proprio sull’inceneritore:

http://www.gipuzkoa.net/incineradora/IncinerationAustria.pdf

Ho letto alcuni dei documenti e credo che ci voglia un esperto per capire cosa veramente esca da
quell’impianto e, soprattutto, cosa si va a cercare, perché alcuni inquinanti potrebbero non essere
inclusi nelle relazioni.
Ecologically critical is the disposal of solid wastes from incineration plants. Especially the
filter ash from air cleaning is containing large amounts of dioxins and furans and toxic heavy
metals. In Vienna this ash is mixed up with cement and used as slag concrete in landfill
construction. As the Austrian Waste Management Act only defines leaching criteria for
disposal this practice is legal but critical due to future dioxin emissions out of the concrete.

AUSTRIA
Name of hotspot: Dioxin contaminated landfill
Hotspot location: Landfill “Rautenweg”, Vienna, Austria
Date of summary: August, 1999
Hotspot category: Landfill site with high dioxin input
Main contaminants: Dioxin
Quantities: More than 10g TEQ Dioxin per year
Company/body responsible: City of Vienna (owns both the landfill and the
incinerator)
Source: 2 municipal waste incineration plants
Description: In Vienna there are two municipal waste incineration plants. Their
total capacity is around 450 000 t/a. They use “state of the art” filter technology.
The filter ash from air cleaning is highly contaminated with dioxins. The filter
ash of the plant “Spittelau?” has a dioxin concentration of 2160 ng TEQ /kg on
average, which means a yearly output of more than 10 gram TEQ. This filter ash
is mixed with cement to reduce dioxin leaching so it can be legally disposed of in
a household landfill in Vienna. The second Viennese incineration plant
“Floetzersteig” has a similar air emission control technology, it is most likely to
add 8 gram TEQ annually As this practice has been going on for many
years, there is a big dioxin bomb ticking on this Vienna landfill.
Action needed: Long term: Stop waste incineration
Short term: Stop disposal in normal landfill, special treatment of filter ash (e.g.
glassification) and store in a storage facility for hazardous waste.
References: Official datasheet of the plant and Greenpeace calculations.
Avete letto bene:

Poiché questa pratica è andata aventi per molti anni, vi è una grossa
bomba alla diossina che ticchetta in questa discarica (NdT: la
discarica di rifiuti urbani in cui viene collocato il mix tra polveri di
filtraggio e cemento, mix utilizzato per diminuire la lisciviazione di
diossina dalle polveri di filtraggio e poter sversare le polvere in una
discarica per rifiuti solidi urbani) di Vienna.
La lisciviazione

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisciviazione

è la migrazione degli elementi solubili del suolo negli strati più profondi, una percolazione di
diossina.

Report dell’università di Columbia:

http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Sunk_Fieldtrip%20to%20Spittelau%20final
%20version.pdf

The solid residues of the WTE facility consist of approximately 280 kg of bottom
ash, ferrous scrap, filter ash and filter cake per ton of waste input.
Following separate transport of bottom ash (in covered wagons) and filter ash
(in silo transporters) to a special processing plant (Waste treatment facility
Rinterzelt, Vienna), these two residues are sieved, scanned again to remove any
ferrous scrap, mixed with cement and water, and used in landfill construction
for border walls as a slag-filter ash concrete with an eluate quality approaching
that of drinking water.
The ferrous scrap (6000 t/y) removed from the raw bottom ash at the Spittelau
WTE facility is recycled in steel smelters.
At present there is no possibility for cost-effective utilization of the residue from
the wastewater treatment plant. The filter cake is transported to Germany by
rail in big bags, and is used as filler in an extinct salt mine.
Health risks of air pollution from incinerators

http://www-cenerg.ensmp.fr/rabl/pdf/RablSpadaro&McGavran1998.pdf

http://www.medcities.org/docs/12%20Waste%20to%20energy.pdf

INCENERIMENTO DEI RIFIUTI: QUALI EFFETTI SULLA SALUTE?

http://www.noinceneritorediscarlino.org/uploads/file/documenti/Termovalorizzatori_03.ppt

Spittelau, l’inceneritore giocattolo di Vienna.

Un servizio di Ambiente Italia, andato in onda su RAI TRE il 16 febbraio 2008,

ha avuto come oggetto l’inceneritore Spittelau di Vienna. Se i dati presentati non
sono errati, quell’impianto tratta 18 tonnellate di rifiuti al giorno e i suoi fumi
contengono da 20 a 40 picogrammi di diossina e furani per metro cubo.
Nell’aria che respiriamo normalmente, la quantità di diossina è di 0,05-0,5
pg/m3, quindi 40 pg/m3 sono un quantitativo da 80 ad 800 volte superiore
rispetto alla normale quantità. Il servizio ha anche fatto vedere l’interno
dell’inceneritore, che effettivamente è sembrato piccolino. Se pensate che
l’inceneritore del Gerbido tratterà circa 1200 tonnellate di rifiuti al giorno,
potete capire che l’inceneritore di Vienna, che tratta 18 tonnellate al giorno, è
soltanto un giocattolo.
INCINERATION AND HUMAN HEALTH

State of Knowledge of the Impacts of Waste Incinerators on Human Health.

http://www.no-burn.org/resources/library/healthandininc.pdf

There are relatively few data about dioxins in fly ashes and bottom
ashes because many installations are not obligated to control them
(Fabrellas et al. 1999, Greenpeace Nordic 1999).
A theoretical assessment of releases from an incinerator in Sweden suggested
that 97% of the total dioxin emissions from an incinerator would be present in
the ash. This is in close agreement with direct measurements from an
incinerator (Spittelau) in Austria, which showed that 99.6% of the total dioxin
releases were in ash residues (Greenpeace Austria 1999). A study on a Spanish
incinerator also noted that only a minor proportion of dioxin emissions is
through stack gases, the majority being in ashes (Abad et al. 2000). In addition
to chlorinated dioxins, it is also likely that other halogenated dioxins and furans
are present in ashes, as in flue gases, such as brominated and mixed
chlorinated/brominated compounds.
A study on medical and MSW incinerator fly ashes found results suggesting that
iodinated dioxins are also likely to be present (Kashima et al. 1999).

L’articolo precedente è eccezionale. Le conclusioni:

THE SOLUTION: REDUCE, RE-USE AND RECYCLE and PHASE OUT INCINERATION.

One of the methods being chosen to deal with the current waste crisis is
incineration, a method which is promoted as reducing the volume of solid waste
thereby lessening the burden on landfill. However, incinerators are not the
solution to the waste problem. Indeed, they are symptoms of non-
existent and/or ill-conceived policies for the management of
material resources. In a world of shrinking resources, it is irrational to let
valuable resources “go up in smoke,” and doubly so when the smoke is known to
carry persistent and other hazardous chemicals. Incineration cannot be
regarded as a sustainable technology for waste management and has no place in
a world striving to change towards zero discharge technologies.
It is notable that incineration has already been banned by the
government of the Philippines, a move primarily instigated by public
opposition to incineration. The Philippines is the first country in the world to
ban incineration on a national scale.

The precautionary principle acknowledges that, if further environmental

degradation is to be minimised and reversed, precaution and prevention must
be the overriding principles of policy. It requires that the burden of proof should
not be laid upon the protectors of the environment to demonstrate conclusive
harm, but rather on the prospective polluter to demonstrate no likelihood of
harm. The precautionary principle is now gaining acceptance internally as a
foundation for strategies to protect the environment and human health (Stairs
and Johnston 1991). Current regulation for incinerators is not based on
the precautionary principle. Instead it attempts to set limits for the
discharge of chemicals into the environment which are designated as
“safe”. In the current regulatory system the burden of proof lies with those who
need to “prove” that health impacts exist before being able to attempt to remove
the cause of the problem and not with the polluters themselves (Nicolopoulou-
Stamati et al. 2000). Based on knowledge regarding the toxic effects of many
 environmental chemical pollutants, which has accumulated over recent decades,
a more legitimate viewpoint is that “chemicals should be considered as
dangerous until proven otherwise”.

STATUS OF MECHANICAL-BIOLOGICAL TREATMENT OF RESIDUAL WASTE AND

UTILIZATION OF REFUSE-DERIVED FUELS IN EUROPE

Austria remains far below the upper time horizons established by European legislation regarding the
reduction of bio-degradable waste fractions, and besides, the landfilled residues must comply with
relatively stringent quality standards.