Synopsis: The proposed study is designed to characterize emissions of PCDD/Fs, PAHs, HCB, PCBs and other pollutants of concern from burning of agricultural plastics. Another objective of the study is to identify alternate methods for disposing/recycling agriculture plastics. For this study University of Dayton will collaborate with researchers from US-EPA and with representatives of industrial trade associations namely Agriculture Container Recycling Council (ACRC), and American Nursery and Landscape Association (ANLA). The laboratory study will be conducted at the University of Dayton and the larger scale burn experiments will be conducted at the US-EPA's burn hut facility at Research Triangle Park , North Carolina . The trade associations will provide input in selecting agriculture plastic samples, determining burn conditions, and in identifying alternate methods for disposing/recycling agriculture plastics. The emission data collected from this study will be used to calculate emission factors of the focus PBT pollutants.

Chemicals Studied: Polychlorinated diobenzo dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs), particulate matter (PM), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other pollutants of emerging concern, such as PBDEs

Geographic Areas: US-EPA's burn hut facility at Research Triangle Park , North Carolina

Project Duration: 2 years

Potential Results and Implications: At the end of this project, a report will be generated that will include results from all five tasks as discussed above. From Task 2, under which a controlled, laboratory-scale study will be conducted at UDRI, outcomes will include relative concentrations between vapor phase and particle bound PCDD/Fs and other pollutants like PCBs, PAHs and HCB. The results from thistask will also provide a fundamental understanding of pollutant formation from burning a variety
of agricultural plastics. Task 3 experiments on the open burn test facility at EPA will sample emissions of various pollutants including PCDD/Fs, PAHs, and HCBs. These data will then be used in Task 4 to calculate emission factors (pollutant mass per plastic mass) for these pollutants.
Task 5 will identify alternative methods to burning of agricultural plastics.

Project Contact:
Sukh Sidhu, Ph.D.
University of Dayton Research Institute
300 College Park, Dayton, Ohio 45469-0141
Phone: (937) 229-3605
Email: sukh.sidhu@udri.udayton.edu