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Health Risk Assessment of a Modern Municipal Waste Incinerator

During the modernization of the municipal waste incinerator (MWI, maximum capacity of 180,000 tons per year) of Metropolitan Grenoble (405,000 inhabitants), in France, a risk assessment was conducted, based on four tracer pollutants: two volatile organic compounds (benzene and 1, 1, 1 trichloroethane) and two heavy metals (nickel and cadmium, measured in particles). A Gaussian plume dispersion model, applied to maximum emissions measured at the MWI stacks, was used to estimate the distribution of these pollutants in the atmosphere throughout the metropolitan area. A random sample telephone survey (570 subjects) gathered data on time-activity patterns, according to demographic characteristics of the population. Life-long exposure was assessed as a time-weighted average of ambient air concentrations. Inhalation alone was considered because, in the Grenoble urban setting, other routes of exposure are not likely. A Monte Carlo simulation was used to describe probability distributions of exposures and risks. The median of the life-long personal exposures distribution to MWI benzene was 3.2·10−5 μg/m3 (20th and 80th percentiles = 1.5·10−5 and 6.5·10−5 μg/m3), yielding a 2.6·10−10 carcinogenic risk (1.2·10−10–5.4·10−10). For nickel, the corresponding life-time exposure and cancer risk were 1.8·10−4 μg/m3 (0.9.10−4 – 3.6·10−4 μg/m3) and 8.6·10−8 (4.3·10−8–17.3·10−8); for cadmium they were respectively 8.3·10−6 μg/m3 (4.0·10−6–17.6·10−6) and 1.5·10−8 (7.2·10−9–3.1·10−8). Inhalation exposure to cadmium emitted by the MWI represented less than 1% of the WHO Air Quality Guideline (5 ng/m3), while there was a margin of exposure of more than 109 between the NOAEL (150 ppm) and exposure estimates to trichloroethane. Neither dioxins nor mercury, a volatile metal, were measured. This could lessen the attributable life-long risks estimated. The minute (VOCs and cadmium) to moderate (nickel) exposure and risk estimates are in accord with other studies on modern MWIs meeting recent emission regulations, however.