The waste management Malaysia ‘s hierarchy outlines a methodical approach to handling garbage in the manner most beneficial to the environment. But exactly how does it operate?
EXPLAINING THE WASTE MANAGEMENT HIERARCHY
According to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), A four-tier hierachy to help with waste management decision-making is referred to as a “waste hierachy.”
A conceptual framework call the waste management hierarchy was creating to direct and rank waste management choices at both the individual and organisational levels. Priority is placing on waste prevention, then reuse, recycling, recovery, and disposal.
The hierarchy, which is based on five criteria arranged according to what is best for the environment, encourages us to reconsider our relationship with garbage. This is frequently represented as an inverted pyramid with five tiers.
The “three Rs” (reduce, reuse, and recycle) are replaced by the “waste management hierarchy,” which expands on them into a five-step procedure with the most favoured activities at the top and the least preferred at the bottom of an inverted pyramid.
Along with the development of life cycle thinking in waste management policy, which considers all aspects of a product or service’s environmental impact from raw material extraction, processing, and manufacturing to distribution, usage, and disposal, the use of the waste management hierarchy emerged.
The Waste Framework Law (WFD), a European Union directive, is motivated by this all-encompassing waste management approach. Article 4 of the WFD requires businesses and governments in member states to dispose of waste using optimal techniques.
THE WASTE MANAGEMENT HIERARCHY: UNDERSTANDING EACH STAGE
Businesses can maximise the value of their goods and services while minimising waste production by adhering to the waste management hierarchy. What does, however, each level of the hierarchy mean?
1. DECREASE
The hierarchy of waste management gives high priority to minimising or eliminating waste generation. This phase promotes businesses, neighbourhoods, and governments to utilise fewer virgin raw resources in the production of goods and services.
By taking actions like the following, it is intended to maximise efficiency and reduce wasteful resource usage.
• Buying raw materials that need the fewest resources to process or have the least amount of packaging.
• Steer clear of disposable or one-time use items.
-Buying recyclable, recyclable-repairable, or reusable materials.
– Inventory optimization to stop perishable commodities (like food) from going bad.
If your company is unable to prevent or reduce waste, you can make items ready for reuse.
2. REUSE
The second-best method of waste management is to prepare items for reuse in their original state. Reusing business waste not only lessens the amount of waste that ends up in landfills, but it also saves your company money by allowing you to avoid buying new products or virgin materials and paying someone else to remove your waste.
These steps can be used, for instance, by office-based businesses to reuse common items:
• Filling up printer and toner cartridges rather than purchasing new ones.
• Using reusable alternatives less frequently by using sturdy glasses, mugs, cups, plates, and silverware.
-Reusing packing materials including boxes, envelopes, and other.
-Donating or selling used computers, office supplies, and furniture.
Even things and corporate garbage that are useful to other organisations can be used to make money. For instance, scrap merchants will buy scrap paper, cardboard, cloth, metal, and plastic.
3. Reusing
Recycling is the processing and creation of new goods out of waste that would otherwise be disposed of in landfills. Because developing a new product requires more time and resources than producing an existing one, it falls into the third phase of the waste management hierarchy. For instance, recycled paper can be made into immaculate paper products, but the process needs energy and water.
Your company needs to have the right recycling infrastructure in place to take advantage of recycling opportunities. This infrastructure can take the form of an on-site recycling facility (for example, for grinding concrete into material for backfilling) or a total waste management provider who can handle segregation, collection, and recycling on your behalf.
Contact Gargeon to Arrange a FREE Waste Audit of the Waste Streams in Your Organization.
4. RESTORATION
Businesses can recover energy or materials from garbage using procedures like the following when further recycling is not practical or possible:
• Cremation
• Biological digestion
– The use of gas
– Pyrolization
The recover energy can either be use by the organisation itself or put back into the power system.
5. JUNCTION
Materials that cannot be recycle, recover for energy, or reuse will eventually be landfill and burn (without energy recovery). The fact that waste can continue to have a negative influence on the environment while it is in landfills makes this form of waste management unsustainable.
For instance, it is estimated that 450kg of carbon emissions are producing by one tonne of food waste that is landfilling. Additionally, poisonous liquids and chemical leaks from landfills have the potential to damage the groundwater and soil underneath.
ZERO WASTE TO LANDFILL STATUS ATTAINED
Additionally essential to assisting organisations in achieving their zero waste to landfill objectives is the waste management hierarchy.
In the UK, food waste, green waste, cardboard, paper, and other types of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) were among the materials dumping in landfills in 2018. With so many BMWs being landfill, the UK is on track to meet the Landfill Directive’s 2020 aim of limiting landfill disposals to 35% of the 1995 baseline.
TAKE TODAY TO ADOPTE THE WASTE MANAGEMENT HIERARCHY.
Businesses must come up with workable end-of-life options for their goods in order to keep them out of landfills because there is a shortage of waste space in the UK. Thankfully, organisations like Dell and Unilever are leading the trend toward zero-to-landfill targets. Axil has assisted companies like Whirlpool and Cummins in achieving and maintaining zero-to-landfill status.
MANAGEMENT OF WASTE AND COVID-19
The topic of waste management and its effects on the environment have once again risen to the top of political discussion as various nations steer clear of lockdowns and social distance rules.
According to IFC’s “COVID-19’s Impact on the Waste Sector,” the epidemic raises waste management challenges. First, supply chain delays and coronavirus transmission have hampered plastics and other product recycling.
Concerns have also being make that factories may become more dependent on less expensive virgin raw materials than recycle feedstock as a result of the pandemic’s economic impact and low commodity prices.
Due in part to the increase in recyclables disposed of at municipal waste facilities, landfill use has also risen. The IFC analysis also highlights a rise in single-use plastics due to plastic-based PPE and packaging materials.
This global growth in trash generation gives both businesses and governments with a crucial chance to refocus their waste management efforts in accordance with the values defined in the waste hierarchy. But what is a hierarchy in waste management?
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