Environmental risk of waste and its management - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 136

- Chemical production: increasing costs of energy, handling (transport, storage) of

hazardous chemicals and hazardous waste disposal, stricter legislation;

- Expectation of society: life-cycle approach, environmental impacts, newly recog-

nized health effects (e.g. endocrine and immune disruption), degradability, etc.

Sustainable waste management should not have the aim just to hide and make
waste inaccessible (disposal), but to recover resources in order to reduce the exploita-
tion of natural resources (energy recovery by incineration or resource recovering by
recycling and reuse). Sustainability assumes waste as the mixture of valuable chem-
ical substances and raw materials. Consequently, utilizing valuable materials from
waste needs the same risk and benefit management as newly produced chemical sub-
stances or raw materials. If any of the components of the waste is hazardous, the waste
should be managed as hazardous materials in general; controlling and managing the
risk associated with the hazardousness and potential adverse effects of the waste. Of
course a cost-benefit or other socio-economic assessment result should prove the ben-
eficial use of all wastes. The technological and economic feasibility of this practice
depends on the current situation of raw material shortage, availability and cost of
technologies, and the extent of the supply and demand chain, dealing with sourc-
ing, procurement, conversion, design and marketing of waste. “An optimized supply
chain—in general—includes the elimination of bottlenecks; sourcing strategically to
strike a balance between lowest material cost and transportation, implementing just-
in-time techniques to optimize manufacturing flow; maintaining the right mix and
location of factories and warehouses to serve customer markets; and using location
allocation, vehicle routing analysis, dynamic programming, and traditional logistics
optimization to maximize the efficiency of distribution'' (SGS, 2013). Today's waste
management is limitedly based on these principles.
Innovation, research and development may play an extremely important role in
waste management, especially if not only residual values, but new values are taken
into account and novel applications involved. This is demonstrated by hundreds of
initiatives such as waste bottles as construction material both in crushed and intact
forms (Recycling of glass, 2013; Building from bottles, 2013), beer-cans for solar-
collectors (Cansolair, 2013), recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for polyester
fibres and clothing (Ecospun, 2013), or trees, plants and food waste for special fine
chemicals production by biorefinery (Luque & Clark, 2013; Lin et al. , 2013).
The complexity of the waste problem is shown by the fact that not even the
definition of waste is equivocal.
Waste —or rubbish, trash, refuse, garbage, junk, litter, black bag—is often defined
as unwanted or useless residue. There are many waste types, notably including
municipal solid waste, industrial and commercial waste, and hazardous waste. This
definition reflects some subjectivity: waste is unwanted for further use by those who
dispose of it; however, it might be useful as a raw material or energy source, i.e.,
as fertilizer in agriculture and raw material for industry, or even as nutrient sup-
ply for the ecosystem. Of course this only applies if the proper supply chain is
available.
The definition of the Basel Convention says: “Wastes are substances or objects
which are disposed of or are intended to be disposed of or are required to be disposed
of by the provisions of national laws'' (Basel Convention, 1989).