Zero-Waste

Reconsidering Waste Management for the Future

Atiq Zaman, Tahmina Ahsan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781315436272
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

This book analyses 'zero-waste' (ZW) as an emerging waste management strategy for the future, which considers waste prevention through innovative design and sustainable consumption practices.

Drawing on a diverse range of case studies from Australia, Bangladesh, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, and the USA, this book explores why urban waste management systems still remain a major challenge for almost all cities around the world. Rejecting waste as an 'end-of-life' problem, Atiq Zaman and Tahmina Ahsan instead consider waste prevention through the ZW model, in which resources are utilized and consumed with minimum environmental degradation. In addition, the authors give extended discussion on why embracing the ZW concept will be beneficial for the circular economy (CE).

Providing a strategic zero-waste framework and an evaluation tool to measure waste management performance aimed towards ZW goals, this book will be of great relevance to students, scholars, and policymakers with an interest in waste management, sustainable consumption, urban planning, and sustainable development.

Part 1
The anatomy of zero-waste

Zero-waste and beyond

1
BACKGROUND OF WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

What is ‘waste’?

Waste is an integral part of our society, being a by-product of economic and consumption activity, it originates from households, institutions, businesses, and industries. The term ‘waste’ can be defined in different ways based on our understanding and perception of resource value. Based on its physical composition, waste can either be liquid, solid, or gaseous. However, in this book, the term ‘waste’ refers to solid waste. The US Code of Federation Regulations (2004) defines solid waste as garbage, refuse, sludge, and other discarded solid materials resulting from industrial and commercial operations and community activities. Waste is defined by the United Nations as

materials that are not prime products for which the generator has no further use in terms of production, transformation or consumption and thus the generator wants to dispose of. Waste may be generated during the extraction, processing of raw materials into products, the consumption of products and other human activities.

(GRID-Arendal, 2004)

Waste also refers to ‘any trash, garbage, refuse or abandoned materials (US-EPA, 2011) which has “no economic value” or function for anybody’(Pichtel, 2005).

The definition of ‘waste’ by local authorities varies as they are based on local perceptions and understanding of waste. The government of South Australia defines waste as ‘any discarded, rejected, abandoned, unwanted or surplus matter’ (Government of SA, 2010), emphasizing personal behaviour and choice. Stockholm uses the same definition of waste as used in the European Commission Directive on waste, which defines waste as ‘any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard’ (European Commission, 2012). Whereas the government of California defines waste as ‘objects or materials for which no use or reuse is intended’ (Cal-Recycle, 2010), primarily focusing on the usability of the materials or objects, and the waste authority in Dhaka defines waste as ‘those residual materials that have no economic value’ (DoE, 2009).

All the aforementioned definitions of waste summarize three significant points: (i) anything that appears as valueless (both subjective and objective value) to its producer, (ii) not functional to users, and (iii) requires to be discarded. Simply, when a valuable material or product loses both its subjective value (which is the value in the judgements of the owner, not in the object itself) and objective value (which is inherent in the object itself – price or materialistic value) at any point of production and consumption process, it becomes a waste, and thus the owner intends or requires to discard it. In most of the developed countries, even a newly purchased product becomes refuse, rubbish, or garbage very quickly because the owner of the product does not see any value (subjective) and function in it after a certain period of time. However, the same ‘waste’ may be a valuable product or resource in many developing countries; for example, old electronic ‘waste’ from developed countries is sold to developing countries as the so-called waste has value to the people in the developing countries. Thus ‘waste’ from the developed countries is seen as an opportunity in many developing countries.

Amongst various waste types, the discussion will be limited to the following waste categories in this book:

MSW

MSW is one of the most common and largely generated waste products that every city and country needs to manage. Definitions of MSW vary between countries and geographical jurisdictions. Generally, MSW is defined as ‘waste generated by households and waste of a similar nature generated from commercial and industrial process’ (UN-HABITAT, 2010, p. 6). MSW is defined by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as waste that is

collected and treated by, or for municipalities. It covers waste from households, including bulky waste, similar waste from commerce and trade, office buildings, institutions and small businesses, yard and garden, street sweepings, contents of litter containers, and market cleansing. Waste from municipal sewage networks and treatment, as well as municipal construction and demolition, is excluded.

(GRID-Arendal, 2004)

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste

C&D waste consisting of cement, bricks, asphalt, wood, metals, and other construction materials that are typically inert and are generated regularly as a result of new construction, demolition of old structures and roadways, and regular maintenance of buildings (UNEP, 2005). Very large volumes of demolition waste are generated during natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, typhoons, and others) and during wars.

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)

There is no globally agreed definition of WEEE. The European Union (EU) Directive 2002/96/EC defines WEEE as ‘electrical or electronic equipment which is waste.…, including all components, subassemblies and consumables which are part of the product at the time of discarding’ (European Commission, 2002). Some of the most common electronic waste include personal computers, printers, monitors, television sets, and cellular telephones. As the usage of these and similar products increases, many of them are replaced and disposed of each year.

Types and composition of MSW

Waste can be broadly categorized as municipal, institutional, industrial, medical, universal, C&D, radioactive, mining, and agricultural depending on the source of generation (Hartln, 1996; Pichtel, 2005). Although, MSW refers to the types of waste that are commonly managed by local waste authority, in many jurisdictions around the world, MSW can be broadly categorized as domestic or household waste, commercial, and institutional waste.

Household waste is created by various domestic consumption activities, such as cooking and eating. Besides that, a significant proportion of MSW consists of various consumer products, such as clothes, electronic items, and white goods. According to physical and chemical composition, MSW can be categorized as organic and inorganic, hazardous and non-hazardous, and combustible and non-combustible waste.

The constituents of waste composition are highly dependent on resource consumption patterns. As the consumption activities vary in different countries and locality, the composition of MSW also varies. The waste composition has changed significantly over time, as the consumption patterns have evolved from a very simple form to a highly complex form. In nomadic societies, humans produced bones and other parts of the animals as they hunted for their food (Reddy, 2011). Nature managed these wastes, and, literally, there were no waste at all as they decayed over time.

When we moved from nomadic societies to agricultural societies and started living in wooden shelters, we started to produce other types of waste, such as wood. Waste composition has been associated with human consumption cultures; for example, the ancient cultures of the east and gulf coasts of the US left huge piles of marine molluscs they had eaten (Kangas, 2003). During the fifth century BC, garbage in Greece normally consisted of food waste, faecal matter, potsherds, and abandoned babies (e.g. malformed or illegitimate) (Kelly, 1973). The composition of London’s solid waste in 1888 mainly consisted of fine dust and cinder (81.7%) and vegetable, putrescible, and bone (13.2%) (Pichtel, 2005). Paper and plastic were not present as widespread consumer products during that time; however, less than a century later, paper constituted the highest (34%) waste composition in 1967.

During the Industrial Revolution (in the eighteenth to nineteenth century), people started to move from a predominantly agrarian or rural society to an urban society. New products and product categories were developed in a short period of time due to innovative manufacturing processes and efficient machineries, motorized vehicles, new construction materials, innovative spinning, and weaving technologies are some examples. Along with products, various urban services were also introduced to meet the ever-growing demand of human needs. In the modern era, lifestyles changed, and people embraced new products and gadgets in a daily basis, which resulted in producing a varied and complex waste composition over time.

TABLE 1.1 The key inventions and influence in the waste composition over time

From Table 1.1, it is evident that in the pre-industrial era, solid wastes mainly constituted biological and non-hazardous components. Later in the industrial era, non-biodegradable and hazardous materials were used in the manufacturing process to generate more of non-biodegradable and toxic wastes. We are now in the era of electronics where more than 62 different materials or composite materials are used in a simple gadget or mobile phone that leads to create the most complex, hazardous, and environmentally damaging waste compared to the past. Over the past, waste composition evolved from biological, biodegradable, and non-hazardous characteristics during the pre-industrial time to more non-biological, non-biodegradable, and toxic hazardous characteristics at the post-industrial modern time.

A brief history of WMS

Waste is truly a human intervention. In nature, there is no ‘waste’; everything that is produced as ‘waste’ is recirculated in the natural system. Despite being a part of the natural system, we create waste products which are not suitable for the natural recirculating process. The day we started to consume, we also started to produce waste, and thus WMS is a part of human history, which has developed long before the development of our modern civilization. Ever since the birth of agricultural or non-nomadic societies, around 10,000 years BC, humans have been producing solid waste (Worrell & Vesilind, 2012). It is believed that when humans began inhabiting caves, wastes were piled near entrances, and when the heap became too large, inhabitants would simply move on to another dwelling (Pichtel, 2005, p. 21). Thus, at the beginning of human civilization, waste was thrown away and disposed to the adjacent habitat.

When people began to create permanent communities in the early 8,000 to 9,000 years BC, dumps were established away from settlements, probably located so that wild animals, insects, and odour would not migrate to the populated areas (Bilitewski et al., 1997, as cited in Pichtel, 2005, p. 21). As communities began to grow in this ancient period, people started to build cities and urban areas. Archaeo-logical studies show that waste was generated by Native Americans in Colorado about 6,500 years BC (Young et al., 2010, p. 1). It was predicted that each day, the average Native American produced around 5.3 pounds of waste (Barbalace, 2003), merely organic. As the organic waste started to decompose and create odours, people covered them periodically with layers of soil to reduce the odour from waste pits (Priestley, 1968; Wilson, 1977). People made bucket-like trunks to collect waste (Melosi, 1981; Vesilind et al., 2002, as cited in Pichtel, 2005, p. 21) from cities to remote areas in the early 2,100 years BC and the collection of waste was considered as part of ‘elite and religious’ living (Melosi, 1981).

The first recorded regulations for the management of solid waste were established during the Minoan civilization from 3000 to 1000 BC (Tammemagi, 1999). The ancient recoded pits (landfills) were believed to be in the capital of Knossos where solid wastes were placed with layers of earth at intervals (Wilson, 1977). It is evident from archaeological studies that many cities in Europe were eventually buried due to a steady accumulation of waste and subsequently; cities were rebuilt either on the same site at a higher level or at another site (Wilson, 1977).

Street dumping was the most common practice before establishing any organized method of waste disposal system in Europe (Kelly, 1973). The residents of Athens in 320 BC were required by law to sweep the streets daily and transport the waste beyond the city walls (Bilitewski et al., 1997). Romans were the first civilization to create an organized waste collecti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: zero-waste and beyond
• PART 1 The anatomy of zero-waste: zero-waste and beyond
• PART 2 Case studies of zero-waste
• PART 3 Zero-waste strategy and tool
• Conclusion
• Index