Complete guide to waste management
Cool Waste Management:
A State-of-the-art alternative to incineration for residual municipal waste- MBT
The aim of this study is to assess the possibilities for a
system for managing residual waste which does not include
any thermal treatment process. The study includes a review
of mechanical biological treatment (MBT) systems and their
potential effects.
MBT systems are not new. In their more primitive guises,
they can be considered a basic evolution from the (usually
failed) mixed waste composting plants of two decades ago.
However, the potential for integrating systems based around
biological treatment of degradable fractions with increasingly
efficient mechanical separation techniques is a more recent
development, as is the tendency to look to employ digestion
techniques for the biological treatment phase as opposed to
aerobic treatments.
Zero waste:
As a pollutant, waste demands controls. As an embodiment of accumulated energy and
materials it invites an alternative.
Waste policy has become one of the most keenly contested areas of environmental
politics. At a local level in the UK and abroad, new sites for landfills and incinerators
have provoked degrees of civil opposition matched only by proposals for new roads and
nuclear power plants. Nationally and internationally, there has been hand-to-hand
fighting in the institutions of governance over clauses, targets and definitions of the
strategies and regulative regimes that are shaping a new era for waste management.
How to comply with the landfill directive without incineration:
A Greenpeace blueprint
Landfilling of municipal waste has to be reduced for a variety of reasons. The current
practice of landfilling mixed municipal waste is highly polluting, as well as unpopular and
ultimately unsustainable. Now the European Landfill Directive, which came into effect on
16 July 2001, demands significant reductions in the quantity of biodegradable waste
disposed of in this way. As part of the drive to comply with the Landfill Directive, the
Government has set mandatory recycling targets for local authorities.
Some local authorities are arguing that incineration is necessary to meet the UK's
commitments under the Directive, or to deal with residual waste left after maximum
practical recycling levels have been achieved. Neither of these arguments is tenable.
