Health risk analysis of PCDD/F emissions from MSW incineration: comparison of probabilistic and deterministic approaches

Incremental lifetime health risks due to polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/F) emitted from municipal waste incineration (MSWI) facilities were evaluated for resident population in the area of the plant. Risk assessment was performed through a multipathway combined probabilistic/deterministic approach for analyzing the effects of uncertainty and intrinsic variability of the main PCDD/F emission related parameters on final predicted values. Exposure through direct inhalation of contaminated air, soil ingestion, soil dermal contact and diet were considered, with the propagation of the variability of input parameters throughout the evaluation performed with Monte Carlo simulation techniques. The application to a case study representative of two different technological scenarios (modern facilities equipped with BAT – Best Available Technology – and older incinerators) in a location site typical of Northern Italy situation results in median values of the maximum individual excess risk on the order of 109 and 107 for most recent and older plant configurations, respectively. Corresponding ratios for the 90th and 10th percentile values are around 7 and 9. Individual risk estimates derived for the same scenarios from conventional deterministic approaches, where large conservative assumptions are normally adopted for compensating the lack of knowledge about uncertainty, are essentially comparable with maximum values resulting from the probabilistic approach, thus leading to situations with extreme and very low probabilities of occurrence. PCDD/F health risks from MSWI emissions might thus result largely overestimated if real emission characteristics are not properly considered in the assessment procedure. Sensitivity analysis for identifying the contribution of different input parameters on final predicted risk variance indicates, for the area considered in the simulation, a prevailing influence of PCDD/F stack concentration, with exposures arising from soil deposition phenomena substantially negligible: this latter result further points out the requirements for a very careful identification of base input data values for PCDD/F stack concentrations, at least for those situations where plants are located nearby urban areas.