Moving from recycling to waste prevention : A review of barriers and enables

© The Author(s) 2014.

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Waste management & research : the journal of the International Solid Wastes and Public Cleansing Association, ISWA. - 1991. - 32(2014), 9 Suppl vom: 01. Sept., Seite 3-18
1. Verfasser: Bartl, Andreas (VerfasserIn)
Format: Online-Aufsatz
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2014
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:Waste management & research : the journal of the International Solid Wastes and Public Cleansing Association, ISWA
Schlagworte:Journal Article Review Waste prevention planned obsolescence re-use recycling thermodynamics zero waste Metals Plastics
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:© The Author(s) 2014.
Current European waste policy does not mainly aim to treat waste streams but rather place in the foreground of interest the complete supply chain of a product. Waste prevention and re-use do have the highest priority and they take effect before the end-of-life phase of a product or a material is reached. Recycling only takes the third place whereas recovery and disposal represent the least favourable options. Recycling can help to decrease the consumption of primary resources but it does not tackle the causes but only the symptoms. In principle, recycling processes require energy and will generate side streams (i.e. waste). Furthermore, there are insuperable barriers and the practice is far from 100% recycling. The philosophy of waste prevention and re-use is completely different since they really tackle the causes. It is self-evident that a decrease of waste will also decrease the consumption of resources, energy and money to process the waste. However, even if European legislation is proceeding in the right direction, a clear decrease in waste generation did not occur up to now. Unfortunately, waste generation represents a positive factor of economic growth. Basically, waste generation is a huge business and numerous stakeholders are not interested to reduce waste. More sophisticated incentives are required to decouple economic growth from waste generation
Beschreibung:Date Completed 23.06.2015
Date Revised 21.09.2015
published: Print-Electronic
Citation Status MEDLINE
ISSN:1096-3669
DOI:10.1177/0734242X14541986