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Build­ing a bridge strategy for resid­ual waste.

03.06.2020
Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) released today a policy brief­ing which high­lights the import­ance of defin­ing a new strategy for man­aging resid­ual waste that cor­res­ponds with the require­ments of the age of cli­mate emer­gency that we are liv­ing in. The report defines an approach based on Mater­i­al Recov­ery and Bio­lo­gic­al Treat­ment as a bridge strategy for man­aging ​“resid­uals” (1) with­in a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy. The cir­cu­lar eco­nomy vis­ion is all about pre­serving mater­i­als and resources in the sys­tem, min­im­ising the so called leak­ages, such as land­filling and waste incin­er­a­tion. The Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Roadmap and the EU Land­fill Dir­ect­ive also require prop­er con­sid­er­a­tion for the man­age­ment of resid­ual waste. The cur­rent over-reli­ance on incin­er­a­tion has con­trib­uted to a lock-in effect in waste man­age­ment sys­tems which pre­vents prop­er recyc­ling (2) and makes cli­mate change worse (3). This prac­tice also under­mines the efforts of the European Uni­on, which seeks to decar­bon­ise the eco­nom­ies of Mem­ber States (4). ​“The cur­rent sys­tem for deal­ing with resid­uals is out­dated and broken. Waste incin­er­a­tion des­troys vast amounts of resources, requir­ing the extrac­tion of new primary raw mater­i­als, per­petu­at­ing a lin­ear eco­nom­ic mod­el and releas­ing green­house gases from fossil based mater­i­als such as plastic. This prac­tice con­tra­venes the stra­tegic goals of the Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Pack­age and the EU goal to become cli­mate neut­ral by 2050.” Janek Vähk, Cli­mate, Energy and Air Pol­lu­tion Coordin­at­or, Zero Waste Europe

ZWE pro­poses a Mater­i­al Recov­ery and Bio­lo­gic­al Treat­ment (MRBT) system 

that com­bines bio­lo­gic­al treat­ment (to sta­bil­ise fer­ment­able mater­i­als still included in resid­ual waste) with sort­ing equip­ment (to recov­er mater­i­als which were not tar­geted or cap­tured by sep­ar­ate col­lec­tion). This ensures that the neg­at­ive impacts of resid­uals are reduced when land­filled, and at the same time keeps the flex­ib­il­ity required to con­tinu­ously improve the per­form­ance of waste man­age­ment sys­tems. ​“We need MRBT as a ​“bridge strategy” for resid­uals while we work on max­im­ising sep­ar­ate col­lec­tion and redu­cing waste: the strategy must con­sider options for man­aging resid­ual waste aligned with require­ments of the EU Land­fill Dir­ect­ive, and should min­im­ise the cli­mate impacts; at the same time, it must keep the sys­tem adapt­able to decreas­ing amounts of resid­ual waste, and increas­ing ton­nages of clean mater­i­als from sep­ar­ate col­lec­tion, which is and must be kept as, the stra­tegic pri­or­ity.” Enzo Favoino, Sci­entif­ic Coordin­at­or of Zero Waste Europe Equipped with bio­lo­gic­al treat­ment sys­tems, MRBT sites would also be able to address cur­rent and future COV­ID-19-like situ­ations such as bio­lo­gic­al sta­bil­isa­tion, sim­il­ar to com­post­ing, which is per­fectly able to san­it­ise pro­cessed waste, thanks primar­ily, but not only, to the bio­gen­ic heat it releases (4). With this in mind, Zero Waste Europe calls for a ded­ic­ated EU strategy for the man­age­ment of resid­ual waste to align the treat­ment with the over­arch­ing prin­ciples and stra­tegic goals of the EU cir­cu­lar eco­nomy agenda, spe­cific­ally includ­ing:
  • A European Com­mis­sion Com­mu­nic­a­tion on the (mar­gin­al) role of Land­filling in a cir­cu­lar Europe.
  • A defin­i­tion for a com­mon EU-wide approach for man­aging resid­uals that should include the codi­fic­a­tion of ​“pre-treat­ment” and the goals of bio­lo­gic­al treatment.
  • Com­pil­ing an EU-wide sur­vey on tech­no­lo­gies that may be used to recov­er mater­i­als from resid­ual waste, and related applic­a­tions of recovered mater­i­als, cur­rent ini­ti­at­ives, best prac­tices and bio­lo­gic­al treat­ment sites that are already turned into com­post sites.
  • Sup­port for the trans­form­a­tion of exist­ing Mech­an­ic­al Bio­lo­gic­al Treat­ment (MBT) sites into MRBT sites, and fur­ther revamp­ing (par­tial or total, depend­ing on the situ­ation) of both into com­post sites and clean Mater­i­al Recov­ery Facil­it­ies for clean organ­ics and dry recyc­lables with ded­ic­ated fund­ing programmes.

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Source: ZWE, press release, 03.06.2020
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