Sustainable-waste-management-systems.pdf

sustainable waste management systems jeffrey k seadon a b aschool of environment university of auckland private bag 92019 auckland new zealand bscion sustainable design group po box 10345 wellington 6143 new zealand a r t i c l e i n f o article history received 30 september 2007 received in revised form 6 july 2010 accepted 10 july 2010 available online 17 july 2010 keywords sustainability waste management systems approach leverage a b s t r a c t waste management is viewed as part of a generation collection and disposal system a systems approach that reveals its relationship to other parts of the system is examined in the light of producing more sustainable practice the move to a more sustainable society requires greater sophistication to manage waste a traditional reductionist approach is unsustainable as it lacks fl exibility and long term thinking a sustainable waste management system incorporates feedback loops is focused on processes embodies adaptability and diverts wastes from disposal transitioning to a sustainable waste management system requires identifi cation and application of leverage points which effect change 2010 elsevier ltd all rights reserved 1 introduction waste is a result of inadequate thinking the traditional approaches to waste management of fl ame fl ush or fl ing are outmoded customs which have resulted in an unsustainable society in the usa the total annual wastes exceed 115 billion tonnes of which 80 is wastewater hawken et al 1999 of that amount less than 2 is recycled emitting waste into the environ ment resulted in nearly 40 of all usa waters being too polluted to support their designated functions council on environmental quality 1996 and more than 45 of the usa population live in areas where air quality was unhealthy at times because of high levels of air pollutants usepa 2002 conventionally wasteis treated as irrelevant to production only to be managed when the pressure to handle the problem is greater than the convenience of disposal the catalyst to manage the problem eventuates when the waste disposal impacts polluted air water or full landfi lls affect people traditional practices for dealing with waste management fall short in a number of ways a effort is spent collecting and analysing immaterial data for example conducting annual surveys of household waste compositionwhenwastemanagement practices do not change b interventions may be irreversible rather than providing for mechanisms to deal with emerging correctable side effects for example when auckland city new zealand increased waste collection containers from 40 l to 240 l they did not anticipate the resultant increase inwaste quantities and did not plan for it seadon and boyle 1999 c solutions are based around short term goals rather than longer term sustainability thinking for example reporting container recycling quantities while ignoring packaging reduction e g the new zealand packaging accord packnz 2004 d timelagsbetweeninterventionandeffectsareunder estimated thus misinterpreting the perceived lack of response as a need to invoke stronger interventions resulting in over correction that then needs to be fi xed for example the new zealand wastestrategy was reviewed for progressin 2004 one year after it was instituted and again in 2006 mfe 2009 e disregard or undervaluing the side effects of intervention an example is the auckland city waste collection containers mentioned above seadon and boyle 1999 f the focus on fi xing individual problems rather than the viability of the wastemanagement system wms an example of this is the litter problem in new zealand caused by the proliferation of one way packaging in the 1990s this was corrected by instituting a packaging accord that focused on recycling used beverage containers packnz 2004 g reliance on linear extrapolations of recent short term events this is exemplifi ed by a comparison of the trends in waste disposal in new zealand the review of progress mfe 2007a scion sustainable design group p o box 10 345 6143 wellington new zealand tel 64 27 444 5680 e mail address jeff seadon contents lists available at sciencedirect journal of cleaner production journal homepage 0959 6526 e see front matter 2010 elsevier ltd all rights reserved doi 10 1016 j jclepro 2010 07 009 journal of cleaner production 18 2010 1639e1651 considered fi ve years of waste data from the adoption of the new zealand waste strategy and found a 4 2 increase in waste quantities disposed to landfi ll while the environment new zealand 2007 report on decadal progress found almost no change in waste quantities mfe 2007b a linear interpolation over 25 years showed an annual increase averaging 35 000 tonnes vester 2007 found that these shortfalls are common when dealing with complex systems 2 a methodical approach to waste management in trying to adopt a methodical approach to deal with waste management a spectrum emerges this is depicted in table 1 with increasingcomplexityfromdisciplinarytotrans disciplinary approaches thedisciplinarityandmultidisciplinarityapproachesuse a scientifi c engineering model based on the two concepts of reductionism and cause and effect thinking ackoff 1973 the major difference between them is the number of waste streams considered at one time a central tenet of the reductionist image has a hierarchy in which breaks everything into smaller and smaller parts an example of this is the new zealand solid waste analysis protocol which separates waste into 12 primary classifi cations and 44 secondary classifi cations and considers domestic and business waste streams separately mfe 2002 by gaining an understanding of each of these parts and then combining them the observer assumes they can explain and understand the behaviour of the system as a whole and this will achieve the best highest economic solution daellenbach 2001 previously this has not proven to be the best solution from an environmental perspective stone 2002 the second basic tenet of the reductionist scientifi c model is assuming cause and effect relationships that rely on splitting everything into parts and looking for relationships between those parts it is assumed that unmeasured variables are unimportant this may also be inadequate because new relationships and new emergent properties appear some of which are planned but others that may be unexpected the relationship can be more complicated since the causal relationship maybe two wayand thus there could be mutual causality daellenbach 2001 alternately there may be no direct relationship and the linkage is predomi nantly through a mutual covariant observation and interpretation are required to determine which of the above scenarios are present while the scientifi c model is presented as a methodical progression of concepts and experiments an historical exploration provides a different viewpoint kuhn 1996 likened scientifi c progression to political processes and personality cults in that it was more important who was promulgating the postulate and how they went about it rather than the facts behind it he observed that science tended to move forward in a series of steps which he labelled revolutions in keeping with the political context that caused paradigm shifts not by a blinding revelation on the part of scientists but more as planck 1950 described it because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it kuhn concluded that this does not invalidate science but that there is a need to accept a new perspective on what constitutes a scientifi c process a second picture linked to the trans disciplinary end of the spectrum is represented by a systems approach which has holism as a central tenet in this approach an attempt is made to view the whole wms under study not only by looking at the interaction of the parts but also by looking at the dynamic processes and the emergence of properties at different levels tippett 2005 a comparison of the systems and reductionist approaches is provided in table 2 2 1 the systems approach the systems approach developed out of an attempt to unify science von bertalanffy 1955 formulated a general system theory gst which had interdisciplinarity as its essence von bertalanffy hoped to be able to generalise the principles of living systems to be applicable to all systems concrete conceptual abstract or unperceivable however he was unable to go beyond the general concept of holism von bertalanffy 1968 while the progress in unifi cation of science by utilising a gst has been debatable e g checkland 2000 gst thus far has been unable to formulate principles applicable to all systems capra 1996 dubrovsky 2004 rather than seeking an approach to try to unify science a systems approach that handles complexity is more useful the understanding of the complexity of a system for example a wms can enable the reconstruction of the underlying system principles dubrovsky 2004 some of which will be applicable to various systems and others specifi c to the system under study 3 waste management as a system a common sense defi nition of a system is a set of interacting units or elements that form an integrated whole intended to perform some function clark 1978 the conventional waste management approach is that waste generation collection and disposal systems are planned as inde pendent operations however all three are very closely interlinked andeach componentcan infl uence the other the planningrequired for these operations requires a balance between the subsystems of table 1 waste management approaches adapted from max neef 2005 disciplinaritymultidisciplinaritypluridisciplinarityinterdisciplinaritytransdisciplinarity reductionist splitting into separate waste streams for management reductionist consider different waste streams without links cooperation but no coordination between waste stream management waste stream management coordinated from a higher level systems coordination of management between all levels and all waste streams table 2 comparison of reductionist and systems approaches adapted from tapp and mamula stojnic 2001 capra 1996 reductionistsystems analytical objects parts context independent practitioner independent hierarchies structure synthesis relationship holistic context dependent practitioner dependent networks process j k seadon journal of cleaner production 18 2010 1639e16511640 manufacturing transport systems land use patterns urban growth and development and public health considerations clark 1978 this presents the interaction and complexity between the physical components of the system and the conceptual components that include the social and environmental spheres when waste is seen as part of a production system the rela tionship of waste to other parts of the system is revealed and thus the potential for greater sustainability of the operation increases conceptually this broader viewincreases the diffi cultyof managing waste requiring an approach that handles complexity 4 the complexity of waste management the complexity of a wms can be demonstrated by the number of links between the components in the system an example is the ministry for the environment which has responsibility for waste in new zealand the observations below refer to the solid waste work leading up to enactment of the waste minimisation act 2008 the waste unit existed within the sustainable business group one of six groups in the ministry the waste unit had links with other government organisations and waste groups outside the state sector these relationships are analysed below fig 1 shows the links between the various waste unit projects as identifi ed by the waste unit members the links between projects were a strong vital or continuous b medium needed to be involved on a regular basis or c weak need to take into account the largest number of links was to the wma project 17 links 11 strong 3 medium and 3 weak the development of the wma was the focus of attention as this was the development of an important tool to change waste behaviour in new zealand the wma was followed by local government 13 9 3 and 1 respectively the predominance of local government was due the partnership with the ministry for delivery of waste minimisation in new zealand over the previous decade mfe 2009 fig 2 shows the links emanating from the seven waste subsystems that were operational a containers b construction c electronics d farm e hazardous f organics and g vehicles the fi gure shows only the strong links that crossed the subsystem borders outof105stronglinks44crossedthesubsystemborders this is a strong indicator of the dependency of the projects on each other andthecomplexityoftheinternalsystemmanagedbythewasteunit since all of the subsystems have strong linkages tothe wma and local government this showed how central these projects were to the ministry s work in the waste sector fig 3 shows the links between the waste unit and other teams congregated into their ministry groups the sustainable business group had the greatest number of links 10 followed by the local government group 8 then the corporate and community group 6 this reinforced the strong links that the waste sector had to local government and through project work to the community within the sustainable business group the greatest number of links was with the leading government sustainability team this team focused on identifying best practice and promoting practical solutions within government agencies in waste management buildings transport and offi ce consumables and equipment mfe 2009 e all areas to improve resource effi ciency the conceptual fl ow was for policy and tools to be developed by the waste unit in consultation with government business and community sectors then applied and refi ned across government by the leading government sustainability team and then disseminated to the business sector by the sustainable business development team waste work went beyond the ministry for the environment the links with other government departments are shown in fig 4 the waste unit worked with 66 of the 35 public service departments waste minimisation act organics local government batteries weee guides agrecovery packaging accord mobile phones waste management plan tyres public space recycling emissions trading sustainable procurement it tvrecycling guide basel convention waste to energy agrichemic silage wrap degradable plastics cleanfill litter lighting treated timber vehicle waste landfills group standards waste track biosolids concrete plaster board cook islands ict guides hazardous waste policy rebri dairy b wma 7 c electronic waste 6 d hazardous waste 5 and e lighting 5 these projects refl ected the priorities of the government at the time e waste legislation high volume wastes and high profi le wastes consulting across government was a complex process as different departments had different drivers and requirements some of which were contradictory between departments negoti ated outcomes were quite common which sometimes involved the intervention of cabinet ministers outsidethestatesectorthewasteunitmaintainedlinkswiththe waste sector these links are shown in fig 5 the most prominent sector groups were local government new zealand lgnz and the waste management institute of new zealand wasteminz each with 7 links to waste unit projects lgnz represents the city and district councils which are responsible for delivering waste management and minimisation within their territories and waste minz is an umbrella organisation for the waste sector the waste unit projects that had the greatest linkages to sector groups were a construction b the packaging accord 4 groups and c public space recycling 4 groups the large numbers of links enabled the ministry to get the non state sector groups to actively participate in formulating policy and executing a better process product stewardship ict information and communication technology it tv information technology and televisions rebri resource efficiency in the building and related industries weee waste electrical and electronic equipment waste minimisation act organics local government batteries weee guides agrecovery packaging accord mobile phones waste management plan tyres public space recycling emissions trading sustainable procurement it tvrecycling guide basel convention waste to energy agrichemicals silage wrap degradable plastics cleanfill litter lighting treated timber vehicle waste landfills group standards waste track biosolids concrete plaster board cook islands ict guides hazardous waste policy rebri dairy b business c citizens d the solid waste and recycling industry e the state government and f the future technology research sector all of these agents interacted to formulate a more sustainable waste management model the g teborg system sundberg et al 1994 modelled the technical properties of the wms to improve the effi ciency of planning processes both models showed the complexity of waste management systems 4 1 waste management as a complex adaptive system waste management has many of the characteristics reminiscent of a living system an example of complex adaptive system complex adaptive systems interact with their environment and changeinresponsetoenvironmentalchange claytonand radcliffe 1996 many of the properties of living systems identi fi ed by choi et al 2001 can be observed in wmss a comparison of the major characteristics of a complex adaptive system and waste management are shown in table 3 waste act waste track tyres emissions trading public space recycling degradable plastics silage wrap landfills construction b the economic viability of producing energy from methane from landfi ll emissions increased this consequently reduced the impact on the environment from the effects of greenhouse gases by 95 landcare research 2007 c byproducts from the waste disposal service like recovery of organics recyclingpackagingandreusinggoodsbecame economictosetupforlargeurban