[Hello to the new subscribers signed up over the last few days (many from Facebook it seems – not sure how that works as I am not on Facebook). As with others, please investigate the archive dating back to December 2022. Here is part one of a two-parter on waste.]
Most of the companies that manage European domestic waste are multinational corporations which seek to turn waste into new resources. Companies such as Suez, Veolia and FCC Environment operate in a range of countries including the UK. Suez Environment, for example, is a French-based multinational and has operations in eight European countries: Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.
Recycling is not just about environmental sustainability – it is also big business.
The nature of waste
As western societies have grown wealthier and economies have expanded, waste has become an increasingly serious problem. There are difficulties in estimating the amount of waste generated, because of:
· variations in the way waste are defined and measured
· the challenges involved in accurately collecting data across such a wide range of locations, where waste disposal may go unrecorded or be undertaken clandestinely as part of the black economy.
Within the European Union (EU) waste is defined as ‘any substance or object which the holder discards, or intends to discard, or is required to discard’. In 2020, the total waste generated by all economic activities and households across all the member states was over 2,200 million tonnes, the largest quantity recorded since the EU first collected such data.
The waste generated across Europe includes an increasingly complex mix of materials, including food waste, paper and cardboard packaging, plastics, glass bottles, metal containers, used cars, medical and clinical waste, precious metals, toxic chemicals, electrical and electronic waste (e-waste), rubble, concrete, timber, scrap metal, dredging spoil, residues from food processing and rock overburden. Construction accounts for 35% of the total waste generated, mining and quarrying 28%, manufacturing 10%, waste and water services 9%, households 8% and other sources, mainly services and energy, the remaining 10%.
What happens to waste?
Landfill, the deposit of waste onto or into spaces on land, has traditionally been the most common method of waste disposal in Europe. However, EU and national government directives have been introduced to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfill.
Despite these, the European Commission has reported that 50% of the waste treated in the member states (including waste imported into the EU) was sent to landfill sites, 40% was recycled, 7% was incinerated with energy recovery and the remaining 3% was just incinerated or composted.
Environmental issues.
Landfill takes up land space, and if not properly managed, may cause air, soil and water pollution. Some of the waste that is land-filled may decompose and generate methane gas, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Chemicals can leach out from landfill sites and contaminate surrounding soils and watercourses, damaging ecosystems and posing potential health hazards to humans.
Waste containing toxic materials can produce severe pollution problems that may persist in local ecosystems for many years. Incineration of waste also causes environmental problems - gases from the incineration process may cause air pollution and contribute to acid rain, while the ash residue from incinerators may contain heavy metals and other toxins.
In response to such environmental problems, the focus in the waste-management industry is on turning waste into new resources.
Energy-recovery processes
Landfill
Many of the leading waste-management companies have changed the emphasis of their business strategy away from disposal to focus more on recycling and energy recovery.
· Veolia extracts methane from several of its landfill sites in the UK, during and after their working lives, uses it to generate electricity, and exports it to the National Grid.
· Indaver has been recovering methane, with gas shafts and pipelines, from its landfill site in Antwerp since 2004 and it supplies electricity for some 5,000 households.
· FCC Environment has undertaken a variety of restoration schemes on former landfill sites in the UK with a range of new uses including woodland for nature conservation, commercial energy-crop production, grazing land, wetland restoration and parkland for public recreation.
Incinerators
incineration plants also produce electricity and heating for buildings (Figure 1).
· Suez Environment’s plant at Roosendaal (the Netherlands) treats the waste from almost 2 million households and produces the equivalent of electricity for 70,000 households.
· Indaver’s incineration plant at Doel (Belgium) can handle 400,000 tonnes of waste annually and produce 960,000 MWh of electricity, with 75% of the ash residue being suitable for reuse.
Figure 1. The Veolia incinerator in Sheffield, UK
Composting
Aerobic decomposition of biodegradable organic matter is also part of the waste recycling process.
At Indaver’s Bio Power plant at Alphen (the Netherlands) vegetable, garden and fruit waste is digested and composted to produce a range of products including a compost which can be used instead of peat or fertiliser, and biomass for energy generation.
Circular thinking
Circular thinking aims to nurture both ecological and economic health to promote sustainable development. Figure 2 shows circular thinking as biological and technical cycles operating together. The concept of the circular economy is restorative and regenerative. Its supporters contrast it with the traditional ‘linear economy’ which turns raw materials into waste in the production process and can lead to environmental pollution and removal of natural capital from the environment.
The key aim therefore is to progress beyond linear, wasteful economic systems and to ultimately ‘design out’ waste altogether.
Figure 2. The twin technical and biological loops of circular thinking
In a circular economy, outputs are reprocessed, and all waste is viewed as a resource. Reuse may be more efficient than recycling - cleaning and reusing a bottle should be faster and cheaper than recycling the glass or making a new bottle. Vehicles, plastics, and buildings are all designed with a view to dismantling them and reusing parts later – a process called closing the loop. Food is managed more carefully at all stages of the supply chain and waste is composted. New jobs are created in developing and implementing technology. Natural-resource stocks are maintained, benefiting both our environment andsociety.
A circular economy will be easier to be attained if people rent or share goods instead of buying them. This way, the manufacturer retains ownership of the product (and the resources it contains) and responsibility for waste. In these ways, companies are encouraged to innovate more creative and cost-effective ways of recycling and reusing.
The circular economy and waste
Several of Europe’s leading waste management companies stress an emphasis on extracting value from waste rather than on its disposal through traditional incineration or landfill. They claim to be developing a circular business model aimed at reducing the demand for raw-material inputs and natural resources.
However, not all wastes can be recycled or recovered, and, in many countries, landfill is still a major method of waste disposal. In addition, the idea of the circular economy embraces all stages of the product life cycle, from product design and production, through marketing and consumption to waste management, recycling and re-use. Creating a true circular economy is more complex.
Governance
The governance of flows of waste is a global challenge since waste is typically regulated at national or supranational levels but flows of waste are increasingly global which makes it difficult to monitor final use of materials. There are also concerns about how the concept of the circular economy might be used by capitalist economies to justify continuing economic growth despite over-consumption of natural resources and the damaging environmental effects of such growth.
The degree to which waste management and recycling will support a sustainable future depends on a thorough understanding of the production, transport and governance of flows of waste.
