Energy and cost impact of materials separation on municipal waste combustors

New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for new municipal waste combustors (MWCs) and emission guidelines for existing MWCs have been promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A 25 wt % materials separation requirement was included in the standards (new sources) and guidelines (existing sources), but was subsequently dropped. In proposing the requirements, EPA believed that there would be both direct air emissions reduction, and nonair quality benefits considering net costs, energy, and other environmental impacts. In this paper, we assessed the energy impact and associated costs of materials separation. Impact from a national perspective and from the perspective of the MWC owner was assessed. From a national perspective, the energy required to recycle must be compared against the energy needed for extraction and manufacture from virgin raw materials, and this in turn must be compared against the energy value of the combustible MSW fraction. At times, the economics of material separation and recycling appear poor because of competing efficiencies of scale of traditional extraction and processing of virgin raw materials, as well as a lack of markets for recovered materials. In this analysis, we address these issues. 8 refs., 5 figs. , 3 tabs.