Facts
Health and Environment
Conducted by UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit, this research aimed to find traces of emissions from municipal waste incineration plants in their surroundings.
The results show that for four out of six plants studied, no evidence of emissions was detected within a 10 km radius of the facilities. For the two other plants, traces of emissions were detected only 0.2% and 0.1% of the time.
In the specific case of ultrafine particles the study estimates that if PM10 could be detected around a facility, it would be present only at 2-3 orders of magnitude smaller than background concentrations.
However, according to the researchers, the current technology does not allow to detect such a small amount of PM10 against background PM values:
It is not feasible to measure increments of this order of magnitude above background PM values using state-of-the-art instruments.
Study “Using metal ratios to detect emissions from municipal waste incinerators in ambient air pollution data”
Energy and Climate Factsheet
