From Mr A. Olivari D’Emanuele

WasteServ refers to the article entitled “Marsa incinerator frequently belching black smoke: Treatment of clinical waste proving problematic”, (TMIS, 8 March). WasteServ feels that the article gives the wrong impression of the Thermal Treatment Facility in Marsa.

As regards the emergency chimney emitting “black smoke”, the article unfortunately paints it very negatively as all gases must still be treated in the secondary chamber even when the emergency chimney is used. This ensures elimination of the most hazardous gases before they are discharged into the atmosphere.

What happens is that once the chimney emergency opens (and in most cases not much more than just for a few minutes until the temperature is stabilized), all feeding systems are blocked so that only the existing waste in the primary chamber is incinerated. This effectively means that the quantity of the emissions from this chimney is limited to that resulting from the very small amount of waste that was being treated at that particular time. After this instance has passed and the temperature falls to the programmed setting of the operational temperature, the emergency chimney will close again.

It may also be the case that any essential part, such as an electric motor having its operations interrupted (blown fuse/cb), will send a signal to the chimney to open. This is to ensure that no high temperatures are allowed to be generated or sustained within the system. When the system is reset, the chimney will close if the temperature is within the set settings.

It must also be pointed out that the incinerator operates 24x7. During the period mentioned in the article, the plant was operated for more than 7,500 hours. The instances having the emergency chimney opening are very brief and the operator aims at reducing these periods further. Thus, to say that the incinerator is “frequently belching copious quantities of black smoke from its emergency stack” is certainly not true and is giving a distorted view of the ongoing operations at the plant.

It must also be noted that time is needed to change the culture of waste disposal by the waste generators. The fact is that there is a very big difference between mixing the waste and disposing of it at the landfill and separating the waste for thermal treatment to allow the operator of the incinerator to keep a constant temperature. The engineer of the plant is working with other entities, mainly the Civil Abattoir, to categorise the waste in greater detail and separate the items having high calorific value (mainly fats) for a particular treatment.

Apart from this, one should not forget that WasteServ is still progressively commissioning the Thermal Treatment facility with different streams and is still adjusting operations accordingly. The Italian suppliers are monitoring the operations from their offices abroad, especially to analyse the parameters and the feeding systems. WasteServ is planning for the commissioning to be finalized this year. In conclusion, the monitoring instruments of the plant are being adjusted and calibrated regularly until the entire process of the setting of the plant is concluded. The online system is currently being used internally until the entire system is commissioned. During this period the operator is engaging the independent monitor to carry out these tests which data is being published on the website of WasteServ. The readings for December and January have just been received and were also placed on the website.

Antonio Olivari D’Emanuele

Communications Officer

WasteServ Malta