Waste hierarchy index for circular economy in waste management

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 298-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Pires ◽  
Graça Martinho
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karel Van den Berghe ◽  
Felipe Bucci Ancapi ◽  
Ellen van Bueren

This paper assesses the potential of the circular economy (CE) policy ambitions of the port cities of Ghent (Belgium) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Both Ghent and Amsterdam are municipalities that potentially lend themselves ideally to set up a more local-oriented circular (re)production and (re)consumption system. Subsequently, both have the ambition that, in 2050, the CE will have become an achieved public value that influences all activities to be more circular in comparison with today. However, while having ambitious policies is important, we explain that a public value also requires alignment with the operational capacity used or needed to achieve this policy ambition. In this paper, we focus on the ‘negative’ CE operational capacity: landfills and incinerators. Our results show that the CE ambitions of Ghent are more realistic than Amsterdam. During the last few decades, Dutch waste management has been largely privatized. This led to a significant increase in incinerator capacity and a lowering of the incineration price. This differs from Flanders, which has a deliberate capping on the allowed incinerator capacity, keeping the price for incineration high. This increases the incentive for urban and maritime actors to climb the waste hierarchy, eventually thus making the port city (potentially) more circular as a whole.


Author(s):  
Natalie Jones ◽  
Geert van Calster

This chapter examines the structures and principles of waste management law, using several jurisdictions including China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the European Union, and the United States for comparison. It first provides an overview of the so-called macrostructures of waste management laws, focusing on three ways in which the broad structure of waste laws can be contrasted: centralized systems versus delegated systems, unified systems versus fragmented systems, and integrated versus specific systems. It then considers the principles of waste management law, with emphasis on approaches taken to define ‘waste’, waste hierarchy, waste streams, and waste classifications. It also describes management principles such as reduction of waste generation, treatment near the source, standards of waste treatment, prohibitions and restrictions of movement, and extended producer responsibility. Finally, it explores the emerging trend of circular economy approaches to waste management.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-42
Author(s):  
Katalin Lipták ◽  
Andrea S. Gubik ◽  
Ágnes Horváth ◽  
Mónika Kis-Orloczki

Nowadays, the waste management sector faces a number of challenges. Changes in consumer habits generate huge amounts of industrial and household waste. Today’s trends, which involve a higher use of critical raw materials, such as in the manufacture of batteries and solar cells, make it urgent to extract valuable raw materials from waste. The waste sector as a whole, taking into consideration all levels of the waste hierarchy (prevention, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, landfilling), is a significant branch of the national economy, both in terms of employment and income-generating capacity. In addition, the sector can be considered a major intermediary in industrial value chains as it contributes to the generation of secondary raw materials that can be sold to industries and thus help to achieve a circular economy through the collection, treatment and processing of waste.


Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 2373
Author(s):  
German Gemar ◽  
Ismael Soler ◽  
Eva Sánchez-Teba

Waste management is one of the great problems in the world today. This study aims to analyse how scientific research has evolved in recent years in the field of waste management and what will be the key issues in the coming years, mainly in terms of recovery. The methodology used was longitudinal bibliometric analysis through scientific mapping using strategic maps and thematic networks. Among the findings, it was confirmed that the concept of incineration is fading due to social opposition and is changing to a much broader concept that encompasses it, such as valorisation. Being able to create a circular economy without waste should be the goal of policy makers. To achieve this, the waste hierarchy must be respected, which indicates that waste must be managed in this order: prevention, minimisation, reuse, valorisation, recovery and elimination.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-325
Author(s):  
Wambua Kituku ◽  
Collins Odote ◽  
Charles Okidi ◽  
Patricia Kameri-Mbote

Prioritizing waste prevention, reuse, recycling and recovery of materials and energy over disposal through landfilling, offers the waste hierarchy approach (WHA) a sustainable pathway to the management of municipal solid wastes (MSW) and realization of a circular economy. The concept is now part of the legal framework in some developing countries and its implementation has been credited for addressing waste problems linked to high rates of economic growth and urbanization. Even though Africa Vision 2063 prioritizes improvements in urban waste recycling in the continent, much of the MSW generated on the continent is disposed through landfilling evidencing weak adoption of the WHA. This article contends that because WHA is not adequately incorporated in the current legal framework at national and sub-national levels of government, Kenya is unlikely to achieve a circular economy approach necessary for realizing sustainable waste management. Operationalization of the WHA is impeded by inadequate financing, weak institutional coordination, gaps in private sector and informal actors’ engagement and risks associated with investments in large-scale waste recovery initiatives. It is therefore necessary for Kenya to elaborate the WHA in its legal framework at both national and county level, while ensuring adequate financing, involvement of informal actors, incentivization of private sector and adoption of waste planning procedures.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3816
Author(s):  
Javier Rodrigo-Ilarri ◽  
Camilo-A. Vargas-Terranova ◽  
María-Elena Rodrigo-Clavero ◽  
Paula-A. Bustos-Castro

For the first time in the scientific literature, this research shows an analysis of the implementation of circular economy techniques under sustainable development framework in six municipalities with a depressed economy in Colombia. The analysis is based on solid waste data production at a local scale, the valuation of the waste for subsequent recycling, and the identification and quantification of the variables associated with the treatment and final disposal of waste, in accordance with the Colombian regulatory framework. Waste generation data are obtained considering three different scenarios, in which a comparison between the simulated values and those established in the management plans are compared. Important differences have been identified between the waste management programs of each municipality, specifically regarding the components of waste collection, transportation and disposal, participation of environmental reclaimers, and potential use of materials. These differences are fundamentally associated with the different administrative processes considered for each individual municipality. This research is a good starting point for the development of waste management models based on circular economy techniques, through the subsequent implementation of an office tool in depressed regions such as those studied.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4394
Author(s):  
Margarita Ignatyeva ◽  
Vera Yurak ◽  
Alexey Dushin ◽  
Vladimir Strovsky ◽  
Sergey Zavyalov ◽  
...  

Nowadays, circular economy (CE) is on the agenda, however, this concept of closed supply chains originated in the 1960s. The current growing quantity of studies in this area accounts for different discourses except the holistic one, which mixes both approaches—contextual and operating (contextual approach utilizes the thorough examination of the CE theory, stricture of the policy, etc.; the operating one uses any kind of statistical data)—to assess the capacity of circular economy regulatory policy packages (CERPP) in operating raw materials and industrial wastes. This article demonstrates new guidelines for assessing the degree level of capacity (DLC) of CERPPs in the operation of raw materials and industrial wastes by utilizing the apparatus of the fuzzy set theory. It scrupulously surveys current CERPPs in three regions: the EU overall, Finland and Russia; and assesses for eight regions—the EU overall, Finland, Russia, China, Greece, France, the Netherlands and South Korea—the DLC of CERPPs in operating raw materials and industrial wastes. The results show that EU is the best in CE policy and its CERPP is 3R. The following are South Korea and China with the same type of CERPP. Finland, France and the Netherlands have worse results than EU with the type of CERPP called “integrated waste management” because of the absence of a waste hierarchy (reduce, recover, recycle). Russia closes the list with the type of CERPP “basic waste management”.


Author(s):  
Leonidas Milios

AbstractThe transition to a circular economy is a complex process requiring wide multi-level and multi-stakeholder engagement and can be facilitated by appropriate policy interventions. Taking stock of the importance of a well-balanced policy mix that includes a variety of complementing policy instruments, the circular economy action plan of the European Union (COM(2020) 98 final) includes a section about “getting the economics right” in which it encourages the application of economic instruments. This contribution presents a comprehensive taxation framework, applied across the life cycle of products. The framework includes (1) a raw material resource tax, (2) reuse/repair tax relief, and (3) a waste hierarchy tax at the end of life of products. The research is based on a mixed method approach, using different sources to analyse the different measures in the framework. More mature concepts, such as material resource taxes, are analysed by reviewing the existing literature. The analysis of tax relief on repairs is based on interviews with stakeholders in Sweden, where this economic policy instrument has been implemented since 2017. Finally, for the waste hierarchy tax, which is a novel proposition in this contribution, macroeconomic modelling is used to analyse potential impacts of future implementation. In all cases, several implementation challenges are identified, and potential solutions are discussed according to literature and empirical sources. Further research is required both at the individual instrument and at the framework level. Each of the tax proposals needs a more detailed examination for its specificities of implementation, following the results of this study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hoehn ◽  
Jara Laso ◽  
María Margallo ◽  
Israel Ruiz-Salmón ◽  
Francisco José Amo-Setién ◽  
...  

There is a growing debate surrounding the contradiction between an unremitting increase in the use of resources and the search for environmental sustainability. Therefore, the concept of sustainable degrowth is emerging aiming to introduce in our societies new social values and new policies, capable of satisfying human requirements whilst reducing environmental impacts and consumption of resources. In this framework, circular economy strategies for food production and food loss and waste management systems, following the Sustainable Development Goals agenda, are being developed based on a search for circularity, but without setting limits to the continual increase in environmental impacts and resource use. This work presents a methodology for determining the percentage of degrowth needed in any food supply chain, by analyzing four scenarios in a life cycle assessment approach over time between 2020 and 2040. Results for the Spanish case study suggested a degrowth need of 26.8% in 2015 and 58.9% in 2040 in order to achieve compliance with the Paris Agreement targets, highlighting the reduction of meat and fish and seafood consumption as the most useful path.


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