IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 Climate
Change 2007: Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change
10.4.3 Incineration and other thermal processes for waste-to-
energy  These processes include incineration with and without
energy recovery, production of refuse-derived fuel (RDF), and
industrial co-combustion (including cement kilns: see Onuma et
al., 2004 and Section 7.3.3). Incineration reduces the mass of
waste and can offset fossil-fuel use; in addition, GHG emissions
are avoided, except for the small contribution from fossil
carbon (Consonni et al., 2005). Incineration has been widely
applied in many developed countries, especially those with
limited space for landfilling such as Japan and many European
countries. Globally, about 130 million tonnes of waste are
annually combusted in >600 plants in 35 countries (Themelis,
2003).  Waste incinerators have been extensively used for more
than 20 years with increasingly stringent emission standards in
Japan, the EU, the US and other countri