Comparisons of municipal solid waste incineration residues management in China and Europe

An investigation was carried out to compare the present situation and prospects about municipal solid waste incineration residues management in a few European countries and China. The preferred management option for the residues is to converting the residues into higher grade construction materials rather than to landfill or simple road basis materials in Europe. For the point of the recycling, the other interest is to recover mineral materials and metal contained in the residues. Meanwhile, the reutilization and disposal of the resulting residues are strictly controlled by some related legislations and standards of environmental assessment of hazardous materials. On contrary, in China the disposal and related research of the incineration residues are in the early stage and has no standards to control its landfills and reutilization. However, with an increasing amount waste incinerated, at this moment, there exist some problems exerting some difficulties on its management whether in Europe or China. In terms of the policies of sustainable waste management, incineration residues are striving for maximal recycling, and a lot of emphasis will be put to further upgrading of MSWI residues. In this paper, some prospects regarding methods and measuring of managing incineration residues were proposed to improve reusing MSWI residues.