In the last decade, there has been an increasing awareness of the use of by-products and wastes from palm oil mills with the dual objective of reducing their environmental impacts and enhancing the economic viability of the crop. The recycling aspects of palm oil cultivation and palm oil processing have been reviewed and have provided an indication of the present and future use of palm oil biomass current applications being mainly for organic fertilizers and fuel. In the present work, the emissions from incineration of two types of palm oil wastes (POW) fibre and shell are considered, and compared to fuel oil. The results, which indicate less pollutant emission from incineration of POW compared to that of fuel oil, have been presented graphically. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.