The EU's Sixth Environment Action Programme identifies waste management as one of top priorities. The European Union’s approach is based on three principles: waste prevention, recycling and reuse, improving final disposal and monitoring. In particular, since not always waste can be recycled or reused, waste has to be safely incinerated with landfill only used as a last resort. Both these methods need close monitoring because of their potential for causing severe environmental damage. The EU has recently approved a directive setting limits for landfill management and on emission levels from waste to energy plant (WtE) with the aim to reduce emissions harmful to human health. Although the WtE is necessary from an environmental point of view, it is also necessary that the adopted actions are justified both from an environmental and economic perspective. The present paper is focused on a the Italian situation where there is a strong dependency on landfills; for this reason it is necessary reduce it with actions toward the safeguarding and protecting the environment. The aim of this paper is to analyse the economic and environmental benefits from diverting waste from landfills towards energy recovery defining, for a selected Italian region, the proper WtE sizing and evaluating the economic and environmental convenience of WtE investments.

Solid Waste Management: a Multi-Perspective Feasibility Analysis of Incinerators in Italy

CUCCHIELLA, FEDERICA;
2013-01-01

Abstract

The EU's Sixth Environment Action Programme identifies waste management as one of top priorities. The European Union’s approach is based on three principles: waste prevention, recycling and reuse, improving final disposal and monitoring. In particular, since not always waste can be recycled or reused, waste has to be safely incinerated with landfill only used as a last resort. Both these methods need close monitoring because of their potential for causing severe environmental damage. The EU has recently approved a directive setting limits for landfill management and on emission levels from waste to energy plant (WtE) with the aim to reduce emissions harmful to human health. Although the WtE is necessary from an environmental point of view, it is also necessary that the adopted actions are justified both from an environmental and economic perspective. The present paper is focused on a the Italian situation where there is a strong dependency on landfills; for this reason it is necessary reduce it with actions toward the safeguarding and protecting the environment. The aim of this paper is to analyse the economic and environmental benefits from diverting waste from landfills towards energy recovery defining, for a selected Italian region, the proper WtE sizing and evaluating the economic and environmental convenience of WtE investments.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11697/37291
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