Using emission factors to characterise heavy metal emissions from sewage sludge incinerators in Australia

In Australia, there is a general lack of information available on emissions from industry to air, water and land. The reasons include the absence of regulatory requirements for the monitoring of substances covered by the PRTR, limited information on specific industry, difficulties in monitoring certain sources (in particular, fugitive emissions) and the cost of sampling and analysis and the general lack of standardisation of sampling and analytical techniques. As a consequence, for the purposes of characterising emissions for reporting under national and regional emissions inventories there has been a need to rely heavily on default emission factors from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). While there have been general concerns expressed regarding the applicability of data from the USEPA to other countries, there has been limited systematic evaluation of this issue. More generally, there has been limited evaluation of the suitability of emission factors developed in one country for use in another country. This article reviews some recent experience in applying USEPA emission factors to emissions of heavy metals from the sewage sludge incineration industry in Australia. The objective is to discuss the advantages, disadvantages and uncertainties associated with applying emission factors developed in other countries to the Australian situation. In addition, the general approach adopted to the evaluation of the applicability of US emission factors to the Australian industry provides one model for the verification of emission factors, in situations where there are limited monitoring data available. While the focus of the discussion is on Australia, the issues raised are more widely applicable to the application of emission factors developed in one country to other countries. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.