Climate change anyone?

[Big J]

25 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I did say unsorted municipal waste and you had implied that you had sorted yours into combustibles.

 

Mind your virgin wood ash is now contaminated with whatever minor chemicals went into your combustibles and as your woodburner was not designed to retain all the massflow for a couple of seconds at above 1200C  and then exhausting them through a wet scrubber AND/OR an electrostatic precipitator a number of nasties could have been emitted, which a properly managed incinerator would have trapped.

I don't dispute that there are some unpleasant things in the off-gassing, but in the scheme of things I feel its better than putting it out to recycling/landfill. Nappies for instance , reduce to almost nothing when incinerated. By being able to burn some of our waste, it reduces our overall waste output by 2/3 over winter.

[openspaceman]

10 minutes ago, Big J said:

I don't dispute that there are some unpleasant things in the off-gassing, but in the scheme of things I feel its better than putting it out to recycling/landfill. Nappies for instance , reduce to almost nothing when incinerated. By being able to burn some of our waste, it reduces our overall waste output by 2/3 over winter.

We  started designing an incinerator for nappies for a care home, about 20 years ago, it all looked promising and there's mostly only aliphatic (straight chain plastics) in them, the sodium polyacrylate that is used to absorb the liquid shouldn't be a problem either, it is apparently a problem in landfill..  The main problem would be the effect of all that moisture on the combustion conditions of the burner.

[Big J]

12 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

We  started designing an incinerator for nappies for a care home, about 20 years ago, it all looked promising and there's mostly only aliphatic (straight chain plastics) in them, the sodium polyacrylate that is used to absorb the liquid shouldn't be a problem either, it is apparently a problem in landfill..  The main problem would be the effect of all that moisture on the combustion conditions of the burner.

That is very interesting. Always great to hear your perspective on all things combustion as whilst I regard myself as quite well versed, I'm not expert.

 

Whenever burning something like nappies, I ensure that there is a good bed of embers and wood fuel as well allowing more air than normal into the stove. There is no visible smoke coming from the chimney.

 

It helps that the stove is very large. I wouldn't do this with a 6kw burner.

Edited December 14, 2020 by Big J

[doobin]

I loved my old Rayburn. Flipped the top around so that the removable plate for the kettle was over the fire chamber. Sat a kettle over it permanently. Any kitchen waste, just lift the kettle and chuck it in. Perfect.

[trigger_andy]

22 minutes ago, doobin said:

I loved my old Rayburn. Flipped the top around so that the removable plate for the kettle was over the fire chamber. Sat a kettle over it permanently. Any kitchen waste, just lift the kettle and chuck it in. Perfect.

I have a burn pile outside. Anything and everything combustible gets thrown on there. Would not be keen putting that kinda crap up my flue. 

 

Chickens get all the kitchen scraps. 

[Khriss]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

I did say unsorted municipal waste and you had implied that you had sorted yours into combustibles.

 

Mind your virgin wood ash is now contaminated with whatever minor chemicals went into your combustibles and as your woodburner was not designed to retain all the massflow for a couple of seconds at above 1200C  and then exhausting them through a wet scrubber AND/OR an electrostatic precipitator a number of nasties could have been emitted, which a properly managed incinerator would have trapped.

HENCE incineration is (  in the country of origin)  path to take,  wasting deisel in a lorry to collect plastic made from crude oil, delivering it on a ship burning low grade marine deisel is a Waste. K

[benedmonds]

1 hour ago, Big J said:

I don't dispute that there are some unpleasant things in the off-gassing, but in the scheme of things I feel its better than putting it out to recycling/landfill. Nappies for instance , reduce to almost nothing when incinerated. By being able to burn some of our waste, it reduces our overall waste output by 2/3 over winter.

I don't know for sure and have no evidence to support my argument (I am sure someone with more time could find some), but am pretty sure you are wrong, small scale burning of waste in a domestic appliance is going to be releasing all kinds of nasties into the local atmosphere.  While all the transport especially if it is international has an environmental cost I reckon micro scale home burning will be WAY worse.

 

There is  nothing wrong with properly designed landfill.  It doesn't take up that much space and people are going to start mining them as a resource soon.

 

[Big J]

44 minutes ago, benedmonds said:

I don't know for sure and have no evidence to support my argument (I am sure someone with more time could find some), but am pretty sure you are wrong, small scale burning of waste in a domestic appliance is going to be releasing all kinds of nasties into the local atmosphere.  While all the transport especially if it is international has an environmental cost I reckon micro scale home burning will be WAY worse.

 

There is  nothing wrong with properly designed landfill.  It doesn't take up that much space and people are going to start mining them as a resource soon.

 

Pales into insignificance compared to the crap local farmers burn. Bale plastics being the favourite. 

I have no smoke from the flue and no odour either. I'd say it's burning fairly cleanly. I always also extra air when doing so rather than slow burning it.

[benedmonds]

27 minutes ago, Big J said:

Pales into insignificance compared to the crap local farmers burn. Bale plastics being the favourite. 

Not debating that.  But if we all did it it would be bad and sending it to a municipal waste collection would probably be better.

[Big J]

14 minutes ago, benedmonds said:

Not debating that.  But if we all did it it would be bad and sending it to a municipal waste collection would probably be better.

I'm not entirely convinced that that is the case, but I take your point