With ever changing national and European targets and legislation, waste management has moved from an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ operation toward one more concerned with reuse, recycling, segregation and reprocessing.
As the aforementioned industries and recycling capabilities improved and became more abundant the industry changed further to one of commodity broking.
Zero waste and landfill diversion sit at the opposite ends of the waste hierarchy. Zero waste is a concept that starts with the manufacturers of products and services revolving around the reduction and elimination of materials that cannot be recycled.
The most common example of the zero waste concept is the changing of a drink packaging from a foil/cardboard carton which has limited or localised recycling options to a glass bottle which has the ability and facilities to be recycled again and again without the necessity for the cullet to travel great distances.
Landfill diversion is a ridiculous calculation used by national and local governments to tick various boxes supposedly showing how hard they’re working to avoid putting waste into a hole in the ground which is made all the more laughable as it includes efw (energy from waste); essentially the burning of anything to generate electricity.
Material reprocessing (recycling) requires the segregation of a commodity either at source or via a MRF (Material Recycling Facility).
With a UK benchmark of 70% of all waste produced being capable of recycling, the required or feasible efw capacity can be easily calculated without forgetting that the ability to recycle something does not mean that it’s financially practical to do it.
Energy from waste would be a brilliant solution if the feed material was heavily monitored and governed to ensure that it was the 30% that would be diverted from landfill as opposed to being diverted from MRFs which it would appear is the trend amongst Borough and County Councils.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment