Mercury From Hogdalen Incineration Plant in Stockholm,1972-1985

Abstract

Measurements of mercury in flue gases from the Högdalen incinerator (which burns most of the garbage in Stockholm), taken before the electrostatic precipitator (ESP), provide some information on the contents of this metal in the municipal garbage. Total mercury increased from about 1 to nearly 5 g tonne^-1 of refuse from 1972 to 1982. At this time a campaign to collect mercury batteries in Sweden was started and approximately half of the mercury sold in batteries has been accounted for in collections.

Since the compaign started, the mercury content of flue gases has dropped to about 2 g tonne^-1 as shown in Table 1. Over the same period particulate cadmium averaged 3.2 g tonne^-1 and particulate lead 80 g tonne^-1. Maximum fluctuations of single measurements have been from 0.5 to 2 times the average.