Avaliação ambiental de Plantas de Pirólise de Poliolefinas

Abstract

In Brazil, around 65 million tons of solid urban waste (MSW) were generated in 2019, 24.3% of which (15.7 million tons) are made up of plastics. In 2020, the Senate approved the new legal framework for Basic Sanitation (PL4.152/2019), which advocates the extinction of dumps and controlled landfills by August 2024, giving way to sanitary landfills or other environmentally acceptable technology. In this context, a solution that the market has offered to municipalities is the processing of MSW through pyrolysis technology, whose suppliers point out the advantages of reducing the volume of waste with the generation of fuel energy, such as gasoline, in addition to the possibility to generate electricity. However, new technologies imply new risks. Thus, this work analyzed three aspects that may constitute technological risk factors provided by a polyolefin pyrolysis plant: the legal framework, the prevailing risk perception in licensing agencies and the risks involved in activities of this type of enterprise. The analysis of the legal framework revealed that it was actually designed to regulate the incineration technology that presents different risks from the pyrolysis technology, thus requiring the creation of specific norms. The evaluation of the perception of risks presents in the licensing bodies revealed that there is a tendency for their professionals to be less judicious with pyrolysis technology when compared to better known heat treatment technologies, such as incineration and gasification. Finally, the risk assessment of a pyrolysis plant was evaluated from a 3D model, and taking into account the current regulations, it revealed that this undertaking would entail intolerable risks