Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 33/A, I-43100 Parma, Italy.
Sci Total Environ. 2013 Feb 1;444:369-80. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.11.079. Epub 2012 Dec 29.
The construction of waste incinerators in populated areas always causes substantial public concern. Since the heat from waste combustion can be recovered to power district heating networks and allows for the switch-off of domestic boilers in urbanized areas, predictive models for health assessment should also take into account the potential benefits of abating an important source of diffuse emission. In this work, we simulated the dispersion of atmospheric pollutants from a waste incinerator under construction in Parma (Italy) into different environmental compartments and estimated the potential health effect of both criteria- (PM(10)) and micro-pollutants (PCDD/F, PAH, Cd, Hg). We analyzed two emission scenarios, one considering only the new incinerator, and the other accounting for the potential decrease in pollutant concentrations due to the activation of a district heating network. We estimated the effect of uncertainty in parameter estimation on health risk through Monte Carlo simulations. In addition, we analyzed the robustness of health risk to alternative assumptions on: a) the geographical origins of the potentially contaminated food, and b) the dietary habits of the exposed population. Our analysis showed that under the specific set of assumptions and emission scenarios explored in the present work: (i) the proposed waste incinerator plant appears to cause negligible harm to the resident population; (ii) despite the net increase in PM(10) mass balance, ground-level concentration of fine particulate matter may be curbed by the activation of an extensive district heating system powered through waste combustion heat recovery and the concurrent switch-off of domestic/industrial heating boilers. In addition, our study showed that the health risk caused by waste incineration emissions is sensitive to assumptions about the typical diet of the resident population, and the geographical origins of food production.
在人口密集地区建设垃圾焚烧厂总是会引起公众的强烈关注。由于垃圾燃烧产生的热量可以回收用于区域供热网络，并可以使城市化地区的家用锅炉关闭，因此健康评估的预测模型还应考虑到减轻重要的弥散排放源的潜在益处。在这项工作中，我们模拟了意大利帕尔马（Parma）正在建设中的垃圾焚烧厂排放的大气污染物在不同环境介质中的扩散情况，并估算了两种污染物（PM（10）和微污染物（PCDD/F、PAH、Cd、Hg）的潜在健康效应。我们分析了两种排放情景，一种仅考虑新的焚烧厂，另一种则考虑到由于启用区域供热网络而导致污染物浓度降低的潜在情况。我们通过蒙特卡罗模拟分析了参数估计不确定性对健康风险的影响。此外，我们还分析了在替代假设条件下，健康风险的稳健性：a）潜在受污染食物的地理来源，b）暴露人群的饮食习惯。我们的分析表明，在本研究中探索的特定假设和排放情景下：（i）拟议中的垃圾焚烧厂似乎不会对居住人口造成明显危害；（ii）尽管 PM（10）质量平衡的净增加，但通过利用垃圾燃烧余热为广泛的区域供热系统提供动力，以及同时关闭家用/工业加热锅炉，地面细颗粒物的浓度可能会受到抑制。此外，我们的研究表明，垃圾焚烧排放物造成的健康风险对居住人口典型饮食以及食物生产的地理来源的假设较为敏感。
