焚化炉

焚化炉是一种在废物回收技术包括燃烧物和有机材料等物质。焚化炉和其他高温废品回收系统可以描述为“热回收”。焚化炉将废物转化成灰烬，废气，微粒，和热量，能够依次被用来发电。废气等污染物在进入空气之前将会被清洁。焚化炉和能量回收是许多废物-能量转换技术比如气化，高温分解和厌氧消化中的一种。焚化炉也不仅仅用在能量和材料回收。在许多国家有专家和当地社区对焚化炉的环境影响存在担心。在一些国家十年前建造的焚化炉在燃烧之前并不包括材料分离以便转移危险品，可回收材料。这些设施对工厂工人的身体和当地环境存在风险，因为不充分的气体清洁和对燃烧过程的控制。并且大多数这些设置并不能够发电。以下参考英文原版：

Incineration is a waste treatment technology that involves the combustion of organic materials and/or substances.[1] Incineration and other high temperature waste treatment systems are described as "thermal treatment". Incineration of waste materials converts the waste into incinerator bottom ash, flue gases, particulates, and heat, which can in turn be used to generate electric power. The flue gases are cleaned of pollutants before they are dispersed in the atmosphere.

Incineration with energy recovery is one of several waste-to-energy (WtE) technologies such as gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion. Incineration may also be implemented without energy and materials recovery.

In several countries there are still expert and local community concerns about the environmental impact of incinerators (see The argument against incineration).

In some countries, incinerators built just a few decades ago often did not include a materials separation to remove hazardous, bulky or recyclable materials before combustion. These facilities tended to risk the health of the plant workers and the local environment due to inadequate levels of gas cleaning and combustion process control. Most of these facilities did not generate electricity.

Incinerators reduce the volume of the original waste by 95-96 %, depending upon composition and degree of recovery of materials such as metals from the ash for recycling.[2] This means that while incineration does not completely replace landfilling, it reduces the necessary volume for disposal significantly.

Incineration has particularly strong benefits for the treatment of certain waste types in niche areas such as clinical wastes and certain hazardous wastes where pathogens and toxins can be destroyed by high temperatures. Examples include chemical multi-product plants with diverse toxic or very toxic wastewater streams, which cannot be routed to a conventional wastewater treatment plant.

Waste combustion is particularly popular in countries such as Japan where land is a scarce resource. Denmark and Sweden have been leaders in using the energy generated from incineration for more than a century, in localised combined heat and power facilities supporting district heating schemes.[3] In 2005, waste incineration produced 4.8 % of the electricity consumption and 13.7 % of the total domestic heat consumption in Denmark.[4] A number of other European Countries rely heavily on incineration for handling municipal waste, in particular Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Germany and France. [2]