Abstract
There are several technologies that recover energy from waste, but the term “waste-to-energy” specifically describes thermal treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW). The most common thermal treatment technology is incineration. In Italy, approximately 6 million tons of municipal solid waste are incinerated annually at waste-to-energy plants. This value has increased by almost 40% in the last decade, despite fewer plants in operation. As seen in Fig. 1 the total number of waste-to-energy plants has decreased from 49 to 44 during the last decade but this has not affected the treatment capacity as the total amount of waste has increased.