The state of sewage system economics in rural areas in Poland

Infrastructure is the basis of economic activities both in urban and in ruralareas. It is also one of main conditions for improving quality of life. Among itsmost important elements are: water delivery system, as well as sewage treatmentnetwork and sewage treatment plants. These devices should create one compositetechno-economical system. Non-integrated water delivery contributes to biggerwaste of water, and without connection to integrated sewage treatment systems, itcan be a serious threat to the environmentIn Poland, and in rural areas particularly, this situation is highly unsatisfactory.In 2007, share of population connected to water network in rural areas was73.3%, while for sewage network is was only 21.3%. In many communes, thisshare was even less than 10%. One can mention a few reasons of this state,mainly: lack of sufficient investment for 40 years after the 2nd World War, bigwater deficit in rural areas (brought about by droughts and thus, big reduction ordecline of water level in shallow homestead wells, being a main water source), bigdispersion of rural settlements in the country, limiting economies of scaleachievement, and lack of resources available for local authorities.The latter, having not enough resources for infrastructure development,made a decisions to concentrate on water system firstly, while more costly wastemanagement was ...

FLUE GAS CLEANING IN MUNICIPAL WASTE-TO-ENERGY PLANTS – PART I

All plants based on combustion of the fuel generate a large number of flue gases, which contain variety of pollutants. These include particulates, heavy metals (Hg, Cd, Tl, As, Ni, Pb), carbon compounds (CO, hydrocarbons (VOCs), (PCDD / F, PCB), acid and other gases (HCl, HF, HBr, HI, SO2, NOx, NH3), whose emissions are controlled, and subjected to the European and regional limits. In municipal waste-to-energy plants large diversity of fuel results in a considerable concentration of the individual compounds which can be dangerous for the environment. Due to these facts, it is necessary to take into account a flue gas cleaning stage in every waste-to-energy plant. The article divided into two parts shows technologies and processes that can be used at this stage. It describes methods used to deal with all kinds of pollutants at flue gases treatment stage. The paper presents emission limits imposed by the European Union with examples of emissions at working municipal waste-to-energy plants, and the limits that are to be expected in the future. Some topics, as costs and residual handling, are only briefly mentioned and for more information a reader is advised to use literature which will allow him to learn more about ...

FLUE GAS CLEANING IN MUNICIPAL WASTE-TO-ENERGY PLANTS – PART II

This article is a continuation of the first part of the article flue gas cleaning in municipal Waste-to-Energy plants- part I. The first part contains an extensive introduction to the subject of flue gas cleaning and cover subjects: reduction of dust and particle-bounded heavy metals as well as NOX reduction. The second part focuses on reduction of acid gases, organic pollutants and heavy metals. One chapter is devoted to examples of working plants: Spittelau (AT), Issy les Moulineaux (FR), Mainz (DE), Zabalgarbi (ES) where used technology and pollutants emissions are shown along with comparison to WTERT 2006 top ten plants and EU limits. Six new Polish Waste-to-Energy plants are shortly describe according to flue gas treatment methods. Some topics, as costs and residual handling, are only briefly mentioned and for more information the reader is advised to use literature which will allow them to learn more about technology, processes and problems presented in the text. The aim of the study is to present the current state of flue gas cleaning in Waste-to-Energy plants. ...