The European Parliament votes in favour of almost Zero Waste for 2020!

Today -24^th May 2012- the European Parliament (EP) passed a resolution on a Resource Efficient Europe which, if implemented, could put the EU on the road for Zero Waste for 2020.

In this resolution the EP joins the European Commission in expressing the need to bring residual waste close to zero and consequently calls on the European Commission to make proposals by 2014 with a view to gradually introducing a ban on landfill in Europe and for the phasing-out by 2020 of incineration of recyclable and compostable waste (point 33)

 

As you can see in the graph on the left, currently 80% of the municipal solid waste in Europe is recyclable or compostable and if the ecodesign directive is boosted in the way the EP asks for in point 5, it is likely that non-recyclable, non-compostable products by 2020 will be less than 5% of total MSW. Hence, this practically means the end of waste disposal in Europe.

It also urges the European Commission to agree by 2013 on clear, robust and measurable indicators for economic activity that can take account of climate change, biodiversity and resource efficiency from a life-cycle perspective. (point 2)

This resolution paves the way for radical changes in how waste is managed in Europe but let’s not forget that no legal binding measures have been taken yet. 

Currently:

• implementation of EU waste legislation is rather poor in most member states, 
• the market incentives and subsidies in Europe go to finance incineration and not prevention or recycling, 
• energy generation has priority before energy saving (i.e. if you burn paper you get subsidy for renewable energy if you recycle it there is no prime or subsidy), 
• it is not compulsory to separately collect biowaste or even guarantee the quality of the compost…

So, institutionally now we have all the declarations of intentions on the side of Zero Waste, time to make the EU waste legislation fit for the challenge!

Source by: www.zerowasteeurope.eu

THROWING AWAY THE CHANCE TO IMPROVE WASTE POLICY?

Solid waste can be defined as the useless and unwanted products in the solid state derived from the activities of and discarded by society. Just as children depend on their parents for shelter and sustainability, mankind depends on the environment to sustain their lives. The environment consists of every single living being on Earth, from the smallest microorganism to the giant whale that swims in the depths of the ocean. 

Solid waste is one of the three major environmental problems in Malaysia. It plays a significant role in the ability of Nature to sustain life within its capacity. Currently, over 23,000 tonnes of waste is produced each day in Malaysia. However, this amount is expected to rise to 30,000 tonnes by the year 2020. The amount of waste generated continues to increase due to the increasing population and development, and only less than 5% of the waste is being recycled.

Issues & Problems

Litter at the roadside, drains clogged up with rubbish and rivers filled with filthy garbage definitely indicate that solid waste is a major environmental problem in Malaysia. Rapid development, population increase and changes in consumption pattern directly (and indirectly) resulted in the generation of enormous amount of waste, ranging from biodegradable to synthetic waste.

As of the year of 2008, 23,000 tonnes of waste is produced each day in Malaysia, with less than 5% of the waste is being recycled. An alarming 19% of waste ends up in our drains, which then causes flash floods and drainage blockage. This situation has been and will be reducing our environmental capacity to sustain life.

Despite the massive amount and complexity of waste produced, the standards of waste management in Malaysia are still poor. These include outdated documentation of waste generation rates and its composition, inefficient storage and collection systems, disposal of municipal wastes with toxic and hazardous waste, indiscriminate disposal or dumping of wastes and inefficient utilization of disposal site space.
 

In Malaysian municipal waste, about 75% is food waste that again will end of in the landfills. All these food waste can be used for compost but due to some reasons. The high amount of organics in the landfill will cause the leachate to have very high BOD and COD. It also decrease the pH of the landfills and make it acidic. Also when all these organics are being used by bacteria (anaerobic), the amount of Methane released from the landfill is really high. Although this methane can be captured and used to produce energy, but in Malaysia, they prefer to just burn it as it will have less impact as CO₂.

Each day Malaysians produce about 19,000 tonnes of garbage (2,100 tonnes in KL). All of that waste has to go somewhere! Right now the trash is disposed of in 176 garbage dumps (over here they use the British term "garbage tips"). However, "illegal dumping" is common. Of these active dumps, only 8 are "sanitary landfills" that have been designed with modern pollution control features. The rest are open dump sites whose locations were not chosen for environmental reasons, but rather because they were convenient places to dump trash. In addition, there are over 100 closed dump sites, most of which were not properly designed for pollution control so they are potentially sites for the production of flammable gasses or pollutants that can leach into the water supply.  

Furthermore, the lack of awareness and knowledge among Malaysian community about solid waste management (SWM) issues, and being ignorant about the effect that improper SWM has to us has definitely worsened the problem.

Questions?? 

1. How to boost the proper implementation and enforcement of waste policy? 

  

My suggestions is : 

• Extension of the knowledge basis of the Malaysian Commission
• Regulation of the civil society participation and facilitating the civil society monitoring activity.
• Preventive rather than a punishing method for ensuring compliance
• Enable civil society to spot and report illegal activities - creating a common “language” between stakeholders

2. What could narrow the gaps between the advanced and less advanced Member states?

My suggestions is:

• Moving from waste disposal to recycling- creative use of the state approach as a means to tackle the gaps between government and citizens
• Consideration of integrated costs of collection and treatment schemes
• Intensifying political awareness
• A structure for best practice exchange between member states

3. The new waste framework directive introduced an enriched, ambitious yet binding hierarchy. How enforceable is it? 

• Set separate collection as the default choice for local authorities
• Harmonized recycling criteria, linked to legal obligations by Member state.
• A broadly accepted proper methodology for the application of the waste treatment hierarchy.
• Setting targets for prevention, reuse and bio-waste recycling
• Clarification of the status of co-incineration/co-processing
• Embed waste policy principles as conditionality clauses for government funding.
• “Performance contracts” for waste management
• Allocation rules for landfill or incineration taxes
• Harmonization of calculation methods and data collection.

According to Dr. Abu Bakar Jaafar, the chairman of the Association of Environmental Consultants and Contractors of Malaysia, the waste management situation in Malaysia has not been improving over time. According to Dr. Abu Bakar "a waste management report submitted to by Malaysia to the United Nations in 1971 bore close resemblance to the current situation". Part of the problem is that Malaysia currently does not have appropriate laws and that management of waste and enforcement of waste management laws required involvement of at least 11 different governmental ministries.

The government has identified 16 waste dumps located near rivers or the sea where the leaching of pollutants from the site could be especially harmful. All of these sites have been closed and are under various phases of "rehabilitation". Recently, leaching of pollutants from an abandoned dump fouled a water treatment plant and cut off the local water supply, so this is still an important issue to be dealt with here.

An alternative to storing waste in landfills, is to incinerate wastes, which carries its own set of environmental issues. There are currently several waste incinerators being built in Malaysia. Not surprisingly, many of these are being built on islands where the space for landfills is limited.

So Do You Know About What Happens to Your Garbage?

"Out of sight, out of mind" is the phrase that probably best describes our interest in solid waste management. We make it, the garbage man takes it away, and then we don't care what happens to it. So what does happen to it? I imagine that not all of you are lucky enough to be friends with the person in charge of solid waste management in your town like I am. I have visited the Jeram Sanitary Landfill as part of a field trip for an environmental assignment during my study. It was a very interesting place to visit. I suggest that you all learn more about what happens to your trash, how much waste disposal is costing you, and what are the potential problems with the form of waste management that your town currently uses.

The Solid Waste Master Plan Takes Shape in Qatar

 

An aerial view shot of the compost plant  

 

Qatar creates over 7000 tonnes of solid waste each day, 30% of which is from households, markets and offices, the rest from construction and industry. Currently only 8% of the total goes to recycling, but under the country's incoming Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan this is set to change. According to the General Secretariat for Development and Planning's (GSDP) recently published Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016 (NDS), the country will adopt a multifaceted strategy to contain the levels of waste generated by households, commercial sites and industry - and to recycle much more of what waste is generated. In approaching the challenge of improved waste management, the government says that it intends to adopt a waste hierarchy that will apply in order of preference avoidance, reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery, treatment, and as a last resort, disposal. 

The GSDP claims that the measures it is proposing will enable Qatar to progress up the waste management hierarchy towards the most preferable outcome of avoidance. The critical step will be establishment of a comprehensive solid waste management plan to coordinate responsibilities, activities and planning. The plan, to be aligned with the Qatar National Master Plan, will cover households, industry and commercial establishments, and construction and demolition. The plan will also provide classifications for different types of domestic and nondomestic waste, mapping their sources. Recycling the primary target In a bid to dramatically improve the country's recycling rates, the Waste Recycling Committee, in partnership with the Ministry of Business and Trade, may arrange subsidies to jump start the local recycling industry, subject to review after five years. Public awareness campaigns will encourage waste separation, collection networks and recycling bins. The government will sponsor demonstrations and public awareness activities. 

Citizens will be made aware of the opportunity to use recycled products, such as furniture made from recycled wood or the 300 tonnes of compost produced daily in Mesaieed. Citizens will also be encouraged to see waste reduction and recycling as an ordinary responsibility, adopted out of respect for future generations. The targets are to recycle 38% of solid waste, up from the current 8%, and contain domestic waste generation at 1.6kg per capita per day, the Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016 has revealed. According to the GSDP, the strategy also provides classifications for different types of domestic and nondomestic waste, mapping their sources. Special attention will be focused on supporting recycling, incentivising waste reduction, promoting source separation and developing a robust recycling sector. Several initiatives will help build up the recycling industry. 

The government has established an integrated domestic solid waste management centre in Mesaieed that will be operational later this year. To capture the benefits of source separation, a proposed new material recovery facility will handle pre-separated recyclables from domestic and nondomestic waste. The GSDP claim that this facility will further reduce waste sent to landfill to 53% and boost waste recycled to 38% by 2016. In the longer term a nondomestic waste management centre will be required to further increase recycling. 

 The turbine building at the waste to energy facility

Targets: 

1)Establish a solid waste management plan, strongly emphasizing recycling 

2)Recycle 38% of solid waste, up from the current 8% 

3)Contain domestic waste generation at 1.6 kg per capita per day. 

Additionally, five transfer stations will be located at South Doha, West Doha, Industrial Area, Dukhan and Al-Khor, equipped with collection bunkers for separating recyclables such as glass, paper, aluminium and plastic, and help reduce the quantity of waste. Currently, most of Qatar's nondomestic waste ends up in a single landfill, at Umm Al Afai, which has become a nuisance for neighbouring communities. The government will formulate plans for closing this landfill at the earliest possible date, once an alternative site for the nondomestic waste is established.