‟
INGENIEUR
... the feasibility of energy-from-waste technologies may be
limited by various factors in many low and middle-income countries,
so it is likely that a well-engineered landfill will often represent the
‘best practicable environmental option’ for waste that cannot be
recycled economically
solid waste in the European Union (EU) was
still going to landfill. Subsequent steps have
focused on diversion from landfill, primarily
through increased recycling but also through an
increase in combustion with energy-from-waste
(incineration). These changes were largely driven
by policy and by explicit targets in the EU, while
the United States, for example, has relied mainly
on market forces (with higher recycling rates
driven by the high cost of state-of-the-art landfill
and energy-from-waste facilities as alternative
‘sinks’). As noted above, the feasibility of energyfrom-waste technologies may be limited by
various factors in many low and middle-income
countries, so it is likely that a well-engineered
landfill will often represent the ‘best practicable
environmental option’ for waste that cannot be
recycled economically, at least until industry
succeeds in designing out such waste.
ACTION IMPERATIVES
All waste generators:
Where practicable, keep materials separate and/
or ensure segregation at source so as to reduce
contamination and facilitate recycling.
Developing countries:
Build on existing ‘bottom-up’, small-scale
entrepreneurial recycling by integrating the
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informal recycling within the mainstream waste
management sector.
High-income countries:
Maximize sustainable recycling, including
composting and anaerobic digestion (AD) from
clean, source-separated feedstock – consider high
efficiency energy-from-waste (EfW) for any residual
waste. Include energy from waste (anaerobic
digestion, thermal processing and landfill gas) in
national policies to support the development of
renewable energy.
Lower-income countries:
Maximize recycling, including organics recycling;
in parallel, develop facilities for the proper
management of any residual waste. In the short
term, the priority is to replace uncontrolled
disposal with controlled facilities, and in the
longer term to strengthen standards to meet full
‘environmentally sound management’ criteria. In
either case, a well-controlled or well-engineered
landfill may represent the ‘best practicable
environmental option’.
REFERENCE
UNEP: Global Waste Management Outlook
Ministry of Housing of Local Government: The
Study on National Waste Minimization in Malaysia
2006.