2024-07-25 06:30:23
Given the pressure on natural resources, the harmfulness of waste increasingly considered by the population, the need to reduce, even eliminate, recover or recycle waste of all kinds – industrial or individual – France is banking on a circular economy concept that is more respectful of people and their environment. It is also among the most technologically advanced countries on the subject and is banking on the deployment of a new social and solidarity economy including waste management.
An extract from “Principles of operational management of waste from economic activities”, by Catherine VIALE
Ecological constraints (reduction in available resources), economic constraints (lower production costs) and regulatory constraints (sanctions for bad practices) have changed the place of waste in the business model of companies, particularly in industry and construction.
Furthermore, the deployment of extended producer responsibility (EPR) and the generalization of territorial industrial ecology (ITE) approaches should ultimately encourage the effective transition to the circular economy model, which means that one person’s waste is necessarily a resource for another.
For the company, waste thus becomes a variable for adjusting expenditure items and a factor for innovation that should not be overlooked. It will therefore need to analyse the benefits to be expected from a prevention approach that will allow it to review its supply and production practices, in light of the financial repercussions of the end of access to landfill sites and the inevitable increase in recovery costs.
An essential conversion towards the circular economy
Currently, 85 billion tonnes of raw materials are extracted each year, compared to 22 billion in 1970. Furthermore, 180 billion tonnes per year would be needed in 2050 to satisfy global demand if we do not change our consumption and production patterns.
However, the inevitable depletion of natural resources by the current linear development model (extract, manufacture, throw away) has led to the emergence of the concept of the “circular economy”, which means that the waste of some can be used as raw material or fuel for others, replacing non-renewable resources. Recognition and sorting techniques now make it possible to offer a “second life” to many products,
The deployment of a new social and solidarity economy therefore occurs in parallel or in interaction with that of waste management.
The integration of an ecological requirement in the three areas of design/production (producing better), use (consuming better) and of course end-of-life management (managing our waste better) of these products actually results in concepts of reuse, recycling and waste recovery.
What are the characteristics of waste?
There are multiple sources of waste and they must be defined in order to manage them better.
Waste can be characterised in particular by its origin (household waste or waste from an economic activity), by the risk to which it exposes, and whether or not it causes danger.
At the same time, recycling or transforming waste gives it an economic value that should not be overlooked. This is the case, for example, of waste from packaging, biowaste, or solid recovered fuels composed of waste from which the recoverable fraction has been extracted.
Waste will be considered “ultimate” when, with current techniques, it cannot be reused or recovered.
Sorting waste, regardless of its origin, is equally essential. Indeed, hazardous waste in contact with non-hazardous waste will necessarily turn the latter into hazardous waste.
Waste policy
The circular economy is based on the preservation, reuse and recycling of resources.
Europe has introduced a number of environmental requirements, the first of which is that waste is no longer considered as a substance to be disposed of, but as a resource.
Similarly, the polluter pays principle has been extended to producers of goods for the treatment of their products once used.
A hierarchy of waste treatment methods has also been decided in order to combat climate change by implementing the best available technologies and optimizing treatment channels. Finally, the development of renewable energies must be encouraged by the recovery of the biogenic part of waste.
Waste management in practice
A study of the best acceptable technical and economic means will allow the company to move towards a maximum level of management of its waste internally. The solutions will take into account the sorting and collection of waste, then its temporary storage, by providing waste zones specific to each type of waste. Finally, the transport of waste to the recycling or disposal point will also have to take into account the characteristics specific to each waste, depending on its nature.
In any case, whatever the final destination of the waste, it must be handled by companies duly authorized and qualified for recovery or disposal operations.
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