Characterization of particulate residues from greenlandic mswi for use as secondary resources

In Greenland, waste incineration is used in the larger towns to treat the municipal solid waste. The incineration reduces the amount of waste, but produces particulate incineration residues such as fly and bottom ash that are disposed of. Most construction materials are imported to Arctic areas. The focus in this study is a characterisation of Greenlandic incineration residues to assess the potential as local secondary resources.

In this study, fly ash samples from all the incinerators and bottom ash from two incinerators were collected and investigated for several physical-chemical properties. The fly ash samples consisted of very fine-grained particles, with different grading for each incinerator. High water solubility due to high salt concentrations was seen for all fly ash samples along with high concentrations of leachable heavy metals, thus pretreatment is recommended before use as secondary material.

The bottom ashes consisted of coarser particles and exhibited lower heavy metal leaching than the fly ash. All residue samples were different and evaluation of reuse should be made individually, however the fly ash shows potential as cement replacement and bottom ash as sand replacement for construction purposes.