Environmental and health aspects of coal and biomass co-combustion ashes

Co-combustion is an important aspect of power generation from coal in the Netherlands and becomes increasingly important in the rest of Europe as well. To study these aspects several ashes have been sampled for many years under different firing conditions in test series, mostly at power plants. These ashes were analyzed and its properties assessed. Occupational health aspects discussed in this paper include respirable quartz, Cr(VI) and exposure to heavy metals and organics. The environmental aspects discussed in this paper include leaching, and composition with respect to PAH's, dioxins, other organics and heavy metals. Fly ash must be utilized in the Netherlands since landfill is prohibited. Fly ashes can be utilized as a building material for which insulation measures are to be applied. It is shown in this paper that co-combustion does not negatively influence occupational health and environmental aspects of fly ash. Coal and co-combustion ashes do not classify as hazardous waste according to the European Waste Catalogue. Ashes have been registered according to the newly introduced European REACH regulation as a substance without any hazard classification.