Assessment of cross-media effects deriving from the application of lower emission standards for acid pollutants in waste-to-energy plants

The recent release of the new European Commission reference document on the Best Available Techniques (BAT) for waste incineration has set ambitious targets for the control of the emission of pollutants. However, an improved performance of the existing flue gas treatment systems in waste-to-energy (WtE) facilities is usually associated to an increase of cross-media effects, i.e., additional indirect environmental impacts related to the increased consumption of reactants and to the increased generation of process residues/wastewater in flue gas treatment. The present study introduces an innovative approach to assess cross-media effects deriving from more stringent acid gas emission standards in the WtE sector. By coupling simplified process modelling and life cycle analysis, the proposed methodology links the higher removal efficiency required for flue gas treatment to the impacts related to the reactants supply and waste disposal chain. An application to the Italian WtE sector exemplifies the potential of the method. The results evidence that, in case of HCl emission setpoints lower than 1 mg/Nm