Recycling of Waste Materials for Stabilizing Ash from Co-Combustion of Municipal Solid Wastes with an Olive By-Product: Soil Leaching Experiments

In the context of the current environmental policies of the European Union promoting the recycling and reuse of waste materials, this work aimed at investigating the environmental impact of ashes produced from the co-combustion of municipal solid wastes with olive kernel in a fixed bed unit. Lignite fly ash, silica fume, wheat straw ash, meat and bone meal biochar, and mixtures of them were used as stabilizing ash materials. All solids were characterized by physical, chemical and mineralogical analyses. Column leaching tests of unstabilized and stabilized ash through a quarzitic soil were conducted, simulating field conditions. pH, electrical conductivity, chloride, sulphate and phosphate ions, major and trace elements in the leachates were measured. The results showed that alkaline compounds were partially dissolved in water extracts, increasing their pH and thus decreasing the leachability of heavy metals from the ash. Cr leached from unstabilized ash reached a hazardous level. Upon the stabilization of ash, the concentrations of heavy metals in the extracts were reduced between 9% and 100%, and were below legislation limits for disposal, apart from Cr. The latter was achieved only when meat and bone meal biochar was used as stabilizer. Entrapment of ash elements was assigned to the amorphous silica and to the phosphates of the stabilizing materials, as well as complexed silicates formed during the process.