Incineration of PCB and Other Hazardous Wastes

In Sweden the management of environmentally dangerous waste is governed by a separate regulation, the Act on Waste Hazardous to the Environment, Ordinance 346 {1975}. It includes a list of the various categories of waste. Already in 1974 the government started implementing the regulation that required industry to use SAKAB for its waste disposal. SAKAB (Swedish Waste Conversion Company) is a mainly government owned company. In 1978 an application to establish a waste disposal station in Norrtorp was submitted by 5AKAB to the National Franchise Board for Environment Protection in accordance with the Environment Protection Act. The application was passed the same year but an appeal was lodged against the permission. In January 1981 the Government decided that the plant should be located at Norrtorp in the Kurnla Community. The Government thereby increased to at certain extent the stringency of the conditions applicable to the operation of the plant. After two years of operation a new application must be submitted to the National Franchise Board. During the two years Jan Bergstr8m was appointed to insure safe operation of the incineration process. That means continously monitoring of operating parameters, sampling and analyses of emissions and calculating discharge values based against specific standards. SAKAB has an operating permit to incinerate 33 000 ton per year. More than 90 % of the quantity were expected to be oil waste, solvent waste and paint and varnish waste. In spite of that fact the main concern were a few hundred ton per year of waste containing PCB and pesticides. The original permit stated that PCB-wastes must be segregated, stored separate and incinerated using a reserved burner assembly. The new permit from 1986 does not focus on the PCB-wastes but instead limits the total chlorine input with the waste.