Municipal Solid Waste bio-drying: odor problem of three configurations

In the sector of mechanical–biological plants, odor is not related to the presence of only one compound. Thus the management of the related problems is not easy. In Italy the odor impact from this kind of plants is often under-estimated, also because, during the design step, the consequences of a few design decisions are not fully understood. The present paper gives a contribution to the knowledge of the different results, in term of odor impact, related to three solutions: biofilter at ground level, biofilter on the roof of the plant, thermal regenerative oxidation with release from a stack. Bio-drying has been selected as reference process. Results obtained from a case-study demonstrate that the design choice can have significant consequences on the acceptability of the plant in an area.