Environmental Assessment of Remediation Technologies for Mercury Containing Wastes using LCA Approach

Abstract

Mercury cell chlor-alkali plants are not anymore considered a good industrial practice and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control of the European Union has indicated that chlor-alkali installations require obtaining licenses based on the Best Available Techniques. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings on the environmental impact study of current and future technologies to remediate mercury contaminated wastes from a chlor-alkali Cuban plant using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. The future remediation alternative consists on the proposal of thermal treatment to remove Hg while the current option includes the waste stabilization and disposal. The environmental impact assessments for both technological alternatives have been compared regarding their impact and damage categories using LCA. From an environmental point of view, a significant reduction on the human health impact (95.4 %), ecosystem quality impact (83 %) and impact on resources (78.5 %) would be achieved in comparison with the existing treatment applied by the chlor-alkali Cuban plant. The proposed thermal treatment technology is a significant costs project, but represents considerable benefits for the environment and human health.