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CHAPTER 13
Comprehensive Remark on
Waste to Energy and Waste
Disposal Problems
Debabrata Barik
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Coimbatore, India
Global population growth and technological progress have facilitated sub-
stantial growth in the production of goods and, therefore, an increase in
material wealth for the population of industrialized countries. However, it
should be noted that all raw materials and fuels extracted from the envi-
ronment turn into emissions (atmospheric emissions, wastewater, heat loss,
noise) or waste at some point. The aim is to keep the volume and impact of
these emissions at a minimum.
Waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies consist of any waste treatment
process that creates energy in the form of electricity, heat, or transport fuels
from a waste source. These technologies can be applied to several types of
waste: from the semisolid (e.g., thickened sludge from effluent treatment
plants) to liquid (e.g., domestic sewage) and gaseous (e.g., refinery gases)
wastes. However, the most common application by far is processing the mu-
nicipal solid waste (MSW) and toxic organic waste (TOW) generated from
various industries. The current most known WTE technology for MSW
and TOW processing is incinerated in a combined heat and power (CHP)
plant. MSW generation rates are influenced by economic development and
the TOW generation rates are influenced by the degree of industrialization,
public habits, and local climate. As a general trend, the higher the economic
development, the higher the amount of MSW generated. Nowadays, more
than 50% of the entire world’s population live in urban areas. The high rate
of population growth, the rapid pace of the global urbanization, and the
economic expansion of developing countries are leading to increased and
accelerating rates of toxic waste products. With proper waste management,
technology, the right control of its polluting effects on the environment, and
climate change can be controlled significantly.
Toxic organic waste has the opportunity to become a precious resource
and can be converted into useful energy for the urban sustainable energy mix
Energy from Toxic Organic Waste for Heat and Power Generation © 2019 Elsevier Ltd.
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