International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

552
29/09/09
http://www.greenalliance.org.uk/uploadedFiles/Publications/CPPWDenmark.
pdf
� D. Hogg, J. Barth, E. Favoino, M. Centemero, V. Caimi, F. Amlinger, W.
Devliegher, W. Brinton and S. Antler (2002) Comparison of Compost Standards
within the EU, North America and Australasia, report produced for WRAP.
� Resource Recovery Forum (2006) The Czech Republic – Improvement in
Waste Sorting, Second in EU.
� G. W. Shaumburg and K. T. Doyle (1994) Wasting Resources to Reduce Waste:
Recycling in New Jersey, Cato Policy Analysis, 202.
34.5 Environmental Benefits
The main environmental benefits from the mandatory requirement for separate
collection and subsequent recycling/reuse of waste materials are likely to be:
� Increased diversion of waste away from landfill or other residual waste
treatments that might otherwise be required; and
� The potential to re-process and consequently recycle the source-separated
materials, saving on raw materials (and hence energy) in commercial and
industrial processes.
In most countries, it is difficult to attribute a specific increase in recycling and
composting / digestion to this policy alone. This is because in most countries a policy
of mandatory recycling of specific materials exists alongside other policies, including,
for example, pay-by-use for households, and, as mentioned in this review, producer
responsibility schemes implying provision of varying degrees of service on the part of
producers.
To this end, the benefits of mandatory separate collection of recyclables would be
assumed to be related to the benefits which studies attribute to recycling and
composting / digestion more generally. For example, the Switzerland Federal
Administration notes that the use of secondary aluminium instead of primary
aluminium saves up to 95 % of the energy required to manufacture aluminium from
raw materials. 652 In Austria, glass recycling in 2007 saved 155,000 tonnes of quartz
sand, 50,000 tonnes of limestone and dolomite, 39,000 tonnes of soda, 212 million
kWh of electrical energy and 5,650,000 m 3 of gas. 653 There is also the possibility of
generating energy from waste (via processes such as anaerobic digestion, where both
energy from biogas and a digestate product are generated).
652 Federal Office for the Environment (2008) Guide to Waste [Online] (Updated 28 th February 2008).
Available at: http://www.bafu.admin.ch/abfall/01472/index.html?lang=en [Accessed 10 th September
2008].
653 Federal Office for the Environment (2008) Guide to Waste [Online] (Updated 28 th February 2008).
Available at: http://www.bafu.admin.ch/abfall/01472/index.html?lang=en [Accessed 10 th September
2008].