Technical Development of Waste Sector in Sweden: Survey

MASTER’S THESIS IN ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES RESEARCH
wastes to protein, Hydro-pulping etc. identified in this research work, could be analyzed
in future.
• The study is done by considering environmental perspective. However, socioeconomic
issues are also important for decision making process. Therefore, there is a scope for
future study by life cycle costing or other decision support tool.
• Study has been done by considering technology based waste management solution.
However, other physical processes like recycling, reusing or innovative production design
are also important and could be analyzed in future.
Advanced thermal waste treatment technologies such as Pyrolysis-Gasification seems very
promising when considering waste volume reduction and emission compared to incineration.
High resource recovery is possible from these technologies. However, these technologies are not
sustainable for long time perspectives. Resources are not recycled by the processes in the thermal
waste treatment technologies, which is more sustainable, compared to burning the resource to get
limited benefit from it. Therefore, sustainable waste management reduction of waste generation
and recycling and reusing the materials are essential.
Since, the study is a part of the project “Tools for Sustainable Waste Management", one of the
aims of the project is to forecast waste management technology in future and develop LCA for
waste management system in futuristic point of view. The waste management development
trends shows that, waste management system would be focused more on recycling and reusing
methodology because of sustainability issues. Innovative production, packaging, extended
producer’s responsibility and personal behaviors would be significantly playing key roles in the
development of waste treatment technology in future. It is hard to predict which technologies
are going to take place in waste management sector in future. Nevertheless, it can be assumed
that a technology supportive to ‘waste hierarchy’ will get priority for sustainable waste
management in future.
KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HÖGSKOLAN
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