Sustainability of Industrial Waste Management
What is sustainable waste management?
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| Waste Management |
Sustainable waste management aims to keep materials in use for as long as possible and minimize the amount of solid waste that is disposed of in landfill or through incineration. However, in our existing linear economy, waste begins even before products are manufactured, and a more in-depth approach to sustainable waste management must focus on the entire lifecycle of a product to enable us to help reduce the negative environmental, social, and financial impacts of 21st-century consumption.
The question then, of what exactly is sustainable waste management, is important if we are to refine and improve our existing waste management systems. Whether focusing on waste reduction at end-of-life or designing waste out of the production cycle at the conceptual stage, new waste management practices are required to effectively deal with existing waste streams while also reducing the amount of waste at the same time.
Just what is waste management? Industrial waste management means disposing of waste, reducing waste, recycling waste, and preventing waste. Preventing waste going into landfills and using waste to create energy are two examples of a sustainable waste management strategy. Recycling waste creates new products from waste streams. Some forms of waste – electronics waste, for example – can be reconditioned or repurposed to extend their lives. It’s also important to consider reducing excessive packaging for products, and items such as single-use plastics.
Why is Waste Management Important?
Your waste management strategy is important because resources are valuable. The environment should be protected as much as possible for manufacturing to be genuinely sustainable. If waste isn’t properly managed, it can result in air, soil, or water pollution. Landfill capacity in the UK is finite, and landfills also generate greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
A large proportion of non-recyclable waste ends up in landfills. This is something the government wants to reduce, and manufacturers can help by recycling as much of their waste as possible or using it to create energy or electricity. Organic waste can also be composted or used to create biogas through processes such as anaerobic digestion.
What makes sustainable waste management so important?
Sustainable waste management is a central part of a broader circular economy. It’s a systemic approach to economic development that stands in opposition to the take-make-waste model and aims to separate growth from the consumption of finite resources. Sustainable waste management helps tackle the broader issues of a linear consumption society, but also offers more direct solutions to the many problems waste causes.
Failing to follow the sustainable waste management hierarchy means that otherwise usable goods and materials are sent to landfill or incinerators as part of energy recovery programs.
Paper and paperboard
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) highlights that paper and paperboard products are the largest contributors to municipal solid waste (MSW) in the United States. While these materials are generally biodegradable and less harmful than plastics, their excessive consumption still places significant pressure on the environment.
The production of paper and cardboard products relies heavily on raw materials, which leads to deforestation, along with the consumption of large amounts of energy and water. Even though paper waste has relatively high recycling rates, there is still great potential for improvement. If all paper waste were effectively recycled, we could save approximately 100 million tons of wood annually. To put it into perspective, recycling just one ton of paper would preserve 17 trees, save 2 barrels of oil (enough to power an average car for 1,260 miles), conserve 4,100 kilowatts of energy (equivalent to powering an average home for 6 months), free up 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space, and reduce 60 pounds of pollution.
Food waste
Food waste is the second-largest component of municipal solid waste in the U.S., making up 21.59% of the total, as reported by the EPA. This issue carries profound social, economic, and environmental consequences. Annually, food waste in the U.S. is valued at approximately $161 billion, which represents nearly 40% of the nation’s food supply. At the same time, around 10% of U.S. households experienced some form of food insecurity in 2019, and much of the discarded food is still perfectly edible. Sustainable waste management practices, such as food donation or composting, could help keep this "waste" in use, but instead, most of it ends up in landfills, where it decomposes and releases CO2 and methane, two potent greenhouse gases that contribute significantly to global warming.
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| About Food Waste |
The problem of wasteful food production begins with its environmental impact, which is responsible for over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and more than 70% of freshwater usage. Unless we tackle the root causes of food overproduction, it seems unlikely that waste management systems will be able to cope with the immense volume of food waste generated daily.
Plastic
The third-largest component of MSW is plastics, which have become the poster child of the dangers of a linear economy, with single-use products choking land and ocean. From the petrochemicals that must be extracted to produce new material to the estimated $2.5 trillion in damage and lost resources, plastic waste is a problem. Sustainable waste management means reducing and avoiding the amount of single-use plastic products along with increasing the amount recycled at the same time, which currently stands at just 8.5%.
Industrial Waste
Industrial waste comes in a variety of forms depending on the industry and the type of raw materials it uses. The industrial waste may be solid, liquid, or gaseous. It may be inorganic or organic. Elements of the waste may be biodegradable, while other parts may be hazardous. Waste may arise from consumer goods production, mining activities, construction, chemicals production, or food manufacturing.
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| Industrial Waste |
Sustainable Waste Management
What is sustainable waste management? Sustainable industrial waste management uses fewer materials in the first place to reduce waste, keeps the materials in the value chain for as long as possible, and minimises waste going to landfill.
Why is Sustainable Waste Management Important?
Sustainable waste management is important because there is not an inexhaustible supply of resources. In addition, the environment must be protected from degradation by industrial processes.
The Circular Economy
You may have heard talk in recent years about a potential system where waste becomes a thing of the past. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘circular economy’.
What is the circular economy? Its long-term aim is simple: to eliminate pollution and waste altogether. In the circular economy, all industrial waste and waste from other sources is reused. Repairing and refurbishing of existing materials products also extends their life as far as is possible. An example of the circular economy is manufacturers thinking about the reusability of their products at the design phase.
The circular economy is a highly laudable aim, but with current cycles of production and consumption, it will be difficult to achieve.
Waste Management Strategy
Waste management strategy is sometimes centered on the 5Rs, which are regarded as an ideal means of dealing with industrial waste.
Waste Management Best Practice
What is a waste management plan? The 5Rs of waste management best practice are:
- Refuse. Don’t buy products or resources that are wasteful or harmful to the environment or generate a lot of waste
- Reduce. Avoid creating waste in the first place
- Reuse. When products or resources can be reused, do so. Don’t throw them away
- Repurpose. When products reach the end of their life, assess if they can be used again for another purpose
- Recycle. Once you’ve been through the other 4Rs, recycling remains the least environmentally harmful waste disposal option
Placing waste on the hierarchy
Sustainable waste management relies on the waste management hierarchy, a system that focuses on avoidance, reduction, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, and finally, treatment or disposal. It aims to prioritize actions for the most efficient use of resources, placing renewable and less wasteful practices at the top of the pyramid. Here, we look at how the waste management hierarchy is central to sustainable waste management.
Avoidance and reduction
Avoiding and reducing the amount of waste generated is the first priority. This can be achieved by maximizing efficiency and reducing consumption. First, businesses and individuals should choose products that require the fewest resources to produce (including the packaging). Additionally, single-use or disposable goods should be avoided wherever possible— these materials are the embodiment of linear waste in which resources are extracted, processed, and distributed only to quickly become waste.
Reuse and recycling
If the consumption of a product can’t be avoided, then there should be a focus on purchasing products that can be reused or repaired, as well as education around how to reuse waste products. Reusing is preferred to options lower down the hierarchy since it can be done without processing new materials, which takes money, energy, and often other resources. Reuse, which is also one of the central tenets of the zero-waste philosophy, can come in the form of having shoes repaired, donating clothes and items for others to use and even researching recipes for food leftovers rather than throwing them in the trash.
If an item can’t be reused, then the next best option is to recycle. This is where the process starts to look like conventional waste management since we are now dealing with materials that have reached the end of their usable life in their current form. Recycling, like reuse, keeps materials in the loop, avoiding the need to extract virgin resources as well as negating some of the negative impacts of simply disposing of waste.
Recycling is considered less desirable than the previous options since it requires energy, money, and resources to turn waste back into usable materials.
That said, the benefits associated with recycling varies dramatically from material to material, with the likes of aluminum more than covering the cost of its own recycling while saving more than 90% of the energy required as compared with using virgin metal. Glass, on the other hand, has energy savings of only 10 to 15%, still being a better alternative to simple waste disposal. Composting is also found at this step of the hierarchy since it allows organic waste to be diverted from landfill and turned into something that can be useful in growing new produce.
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| Recycling |
Energy recovery
The next step is energy recovery, which is the conversion of waste into usable heat, electricity, or fuel such as biogas. This is achieved through a variety of processes such as incineration (with energy collection), gasification, pyrolization, anaerobic digestion, and landfill gas (LFG) recovery, which has some crossover with the last step of waste management.
Combustion is a common method of energy recovery for non-hazardous waste, and while obviously less preferable than reuse or recycling, it does reduce the physical volume of waste that will be sent to landfills and also provides energy from the burning process that would otherwise require fossil fuels to generate. In the United States, there are currently 75 facilities that recover energy from the combustion of MSW, each of which generates around 550-kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per ton of waste. Having said all this, energy recovery is not included on the list zero waste priorities, and is viewed by some in the waste management industry as an unacceptable compromise.
Treatment or disposal
The last and least desirable step in the hierarchy is treatment or disposal. This generally means landfills or incineration without energy recovery. This will inevitably happen to some waste but should be avoided for as long as possible through sustainable waste management.
Zero Waste to Landfill
As we have seen, the circular economy is some distance in the future. Zero waste to landfill, however, is an achievable aim today. According to The Carbon Trust in the UK, in practice, zero waste to landfill is a target of 99% of waste being recycled, composted, reused, or sent for energy recovery.
Reusing and Recycling
Reusing and recycling are key parts of the 5Rs philosophy. It’s important that materials, resources, and products are reused before they are recycled, which is the last phase of a good waste management strategy.
Sustainable Manufacturing
It’s vital that manufacturers continue to improve their environmental performance. With manufacturing generating about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, energy – especially renewable energy – is of course a key focus of efforts to make manufacturing more sustainable, but waste management also has an important role to play.
Precious natural resources must be conserved. Pollution should be minimized. Manufacturers can start thinking about reducing waste before a design is even on the drawing board. And they should also look at every possible means of eliminating or reducing waste across the product’s lifecycle. Can it be used for a different purpose at the end of life? If it must be disposed of, can it be recycled responsibly rather than going into landfill?
Sustainable Waste Management in the Future
Management of industrial waste will continue to be of prime importance in the coming years. Waste-to-energy systems are likely to become more widespread, using waste to generate heat or electricity. Automation will play an important role in sorting waste streams for recycling and recovering a greater percentage of usable raw materials from waste. With single-use plastics a global problem, manufacturers are also looking at biodegradable packaging. Some food manufacturers are even introducing edible packages to cut down on waste.
Zero waste to landfill initiatives are already popular with construction companies and will only grow in number. The increasing connectivity of factories will also help manage waste and make the collection of waste easier and more efficient, reducing wasted journeys and carbon emissions.
The circular economy where waste is eliminated altogether may be some way off, but there are lots of practical steps manufacturers can take right now to improve their sustainability (and benefit their business and community) when it comes to waste.
Waste Management FAQs
What is sustainability in waste management?
Sustainability in waste management refers to practices that minimize environmental impact, conserve resources, and promote long-term ecological health. It involves reducing waste generation, reusing materials, recycling, and ensuring proper disposal to minimize pollution. Sustainable waste management aims to balance environmental, economic, and social factors, ensuring that waste systems can function effectively without compromising future generations' ability to meet their needs.
What are the sustainable waste management processes?
Sustainable waste management processes include waste reduction, recycling, composting, reusing materials, and energy recovery. These practices minimize landfill use, conserve resources, and reduce environmental impact. By adopting strategies like source separation and waste-to-energy technologies, they promote a circular economy, ensuring efficient resource use and minimizing pollution for future generations.
How can we make waste management more sustainable?
To make waste management more sustainable, we can focus on reducing waste generation, increasing recycling and composting, promoting the use of eco-friendly products, and implementing waste-to-energy technologies. Educating communities, encouraging responsible consumption, and improving waste sorting systems also play vital roles in reducing environmental impact and conserving resources.
What is the sustainable way of waste management?
The sustainable way of waste management involves reducing waste at the source, reusing materials, recycling, and composting organic waste. It prioritizes minimizing landfill use, conserving resources, and lowering environmental impact. Promoting circular economy practices, waste-to-energy technologies, and responsible consumption are key strategies for a more sustainable approach to waste.
What is the principle in sustainable waste management?
The principle of sustainable waste management focuses on reducing waste generation, reusing materials, recycling, and minimizing environmental impact. It emphasizes the hierarchy of waste management—avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover. This approach aims to conserve resources, reduce pollution, and promote a circular economy for long-term environmental health.
