PCDD/F EMISSIONS FROM UNCONTROLLED, DOMESTIC WASTE BURNING

Abstract

Introduction Considerable uncertainty exists in the inventory of polychlorinated dibenzodioxin and dibenzofuran (PCDD/F) emissions from uncontrolled combustion sources such as “backyard” burning of domestic waste. The contribution from these sources to the worldwide PCDD/F balance may be significant, but few quantitative sampling programs have yet assessed the potential for emission from these sources. The EPA’s inventory of PCDD/F sources in 1998 (U.S. EPA, 1998) based its estimate of the backyard barrel burn emission factor [140 ng PCDD/F toxic equivalency (TEQ)/kg waste] on limited available sampling data (Lemieux, 1997) and on an activity level (8 x 10 kg waste burned/year) derived from assumptions regarding the frequency and number of backyard barrel burns in the U.S. The contribution from backyard barrel burn sources was estimated to be 1,000 g TEQ/y, making this one of the potentially largest sources in the U.S. In order to begin the process of more adequately characterizing this source, a series of barrel burn tests using domestic waste was conducted with the intent of developing an understanding of the causal factors behind barrel burn emissions.