ABSTRACT
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Solid wastes are by definition, any wastes other than liquids or gases that are no longer deemed valuable, and therefore discarded.1 Such wastes typically originate
from either the residential community (i.e., municipal solid waste or MSW) or commercial and light-industrial communities. Wastes generated from manufacturing activities of heavy-industrial and chemical industries are typically classified as hazardous wastes. As regulations continue to get stricter with decreasing land availability, alternative uses for the waste must be found in order to recover the residual heating values as well as to alleviate landfill-overburdening problems. As indicated from the heating values listed in Table 13.1, the generation of waste-derived fuels appears to be very promising from both the environmental and energy points of view.2,3
In a landfill, the biodegradable components of the MSW decompose over time and emit methane. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas that is known to be 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Therefore, the biodegradable components in MSW, such as food and paper wastes that end up in landfills, must be reduced in a good waste management plan. Many nations have implemented regulations and specific efforts to significantly reduce this level. A good example is the European Union’s (EU’s) landfill directive of 1999, which targets reducing the amount of biodegradable materials going to landfills by 65% of the 1995 level by 2016. From this perspective, energy generation from MSW is regarded as one of the very few options to efficiently cope with the greenhouse gas emission problem from landfills.
