Landfill tipping fees for many municipalities such as Toronto are very high, and therefore MSW may be a very economical method of both generating electricity and reducing the amount of waste which must be landfilled. Mass burning is the oldest, simplest and most popular method of recovering energy from municipal solid waste. In mass burn systems, untreated MSW is simply incinerated. The heat given off is converted into steam, which can then be passed through a turbine to generate electricity, used directly to supply heat to nearby industries or buildings, or to produce both electricity and low temperature heat suitable for space heating. This results in more efficient use of fuel.
Waterwall technology is similar to the furnaces used at coal burning power plants.
Figure 2 is a diagram of a typical mass burning waterwall furnace. This figure will vary, depending upon local paper and plastic recycling programs. RDF processing is often combined with recovery of metals, glass and other recyclable materials in a resource recovery facility. Both of these possibilities facilitate handling, transportation and combustion. RDF is thus valuable as a low cost additive which can reduce costs of generating heat or electricity in a variety of applications.