A consultation meeting was yesterday held in connection with the upgrades and modifications which are being made to the Marsa incinerator, which is expected to be fully functional by the end of next month.

Bearing the weather in mind, there was a sparse – but vociferous – crowd which seemed to mostly be against the project. The modifications to the incinerator have a twofold intention, the first being to be able to treat hospital waste and the second to make sure that the only emissions which come out is the cleanest possible substance – steam.

TMID were given a tour and an explanation of the plant by Wasterv CEO Vince Magri.

The technology is truly incredible, however, as is often the case, the crowd attending the meeting had their own pre-conceived ideas of how the incinerator will function and instead of listening to the explanations given by WasteServ, some simply wanted to shout the project down.

A particular example came about when a woman began to loudly comment on the fact that the incinerator will be in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week except for 55 days during which it will be shut for maintenance.

To put matters into perspective, the current incinerator belches out smoke constantly all day and night, while the new one will be simply letting off steam, so to say.

Ing. Magri explained that the incinerator is expected to commence full time operations by the end of November. “It is truly a marvel of engineering. The modifications have added about Lm1 million to the original Lm4 million price tag, but we are sure that we will have better, cleaner results due to the extra that we have spent,” he said.

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The incinerator is equipped with a cold storage room which will allow waste from the abattoir to be stored there for five days before disposal, while hospital waste is fed into the oven in individual skips. The whole process is automated and the computerised system will also tell engineers what type of waste to burn so as to achieve optimal burning results.

The skips are then washed and disinfected automatically.

The first oven can reach temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius, but will operate at some 900 degrees. It is a rotating oven which will allow more efficient burning. Once the burning is complete, the ashes are compressed and transported to the Ghallis landfill where they are disposed of in the hazardous waste chamber. The smoke and other residues are then filtered into a second burning chamber at a minimum temperature of 850 degrees Celsius.

The steam by-product is then cooled to a temperature of 180 degrees.

This is not, however, the end of the process.

Before being ejected from the chimney stack, the gases which are left are treated again by being forced to pass through vats containing a type of muslin cloth which is coated in active carbon so as to draw out heavy metals.

Moreover, neutralising chemicals are then added to the mix, including bicarbonate of soda and others to remove acidic substances and a type of nitrogen oxide.

This system, explained Mr Magri will ensure that the emissions which are eventually ejected from the chimney stack will be within the limits of the European Directive on Incineration of Waste.

Interesting to note is that the boiler can re-use the steam if it is not all used to heat the secondary chamber. In addition, the main chamber can use chemical solvents – such as thinner – as a fuel along with diesel.

If the incinerator were to be run solely on diesel, it would cost in excess of Lm1 million per year. Moreover, WasteServ is studying the feasibility of producing electricity from the leftover steam.

During the tour, it was also explained how Mepa will have direct real time emissions monitoring capability. Other operations within the plant will include the incineration of dirty water used to clean out skips.

Ing. Magri said it was imperative that people understand that the new plant will be much cleaner than the existing one and that emissions will be much, much cleaner. “People need to understand that this plant is a huge upgrade to what was is presently used. To put it into perspective, it will be as much of an upgrade as was Ghallis in comparison to Maghtab,” he said.

“The easiest thing would be to leave things as they are, but we are doing this to improve people’s quality of life by reducing emissions,” he said. In the coming weeks, the plant’s components will be tested individually to make sure that everything is in good and efficient working order.