Controlled Combustion and Pyrolysis of Waste Plastics: A Comparison Based on Human Health Risk Assessment

Increasing conditions of economic and social well-being have led to an increase in waste production. Among the waste products, a significant portion consists of plastic materials that are popular in the components of consumer goods. For this reason, the conversion of plastic to energy via controlled combustion and plastic to fuel via thermal/catalytic pyrolysis or gasification can be proposed to treat the residual heterogeneous mixed plastics that cannot be recovered as individual polymers. The quality and type of fuels that are possible to obtain from these processes are different, as is the quality of their emissions, which generally contain VOCs, PCBs, dioxins, PAHs, and heavy metals. In this work, we propose a methodology based on human health risk assessment to compare controlled combustion and catalytic pyrolysis. Many pathways are analyzed, and pollutant concentrations are computed in the atmosphere, water, vegetables, fish, and food. Exposure is evaluated for inhalation and ingestion routes by taking into account uncertainties. Our results show that the risk profile of catalytic pyrolysis is low. Controlled combustion remains an interesting process, but even if Best Available Technologies (BAT) are adopted, the cancer risk due to PAHs contained in particulate is around the threshold for people living near the plant if a long period of operation is considered.