Europe's solid waste management issues

Timon Singh

Europe has a problem with waste. As Italy's waste problems highlighted last year, the EU is creating more and more rubbish and is running out of places to put it. Each year, the EU throws away 1.3 billion tonnes of waste - some 40 million tonnes of it hazardous. This amounts to about 3.5 tonnes of solid waste for every man, woman and child, according to European Environment Agency statistics.

With such large figures it is not surprising that the European Union Landfill Directive has been set up to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) sent to landfill.

According to the European Commission's waste management site, the EU's approach to waste management is based on three principles:

1. Waste prevention: This is a key factor in any waste management strategy. If we can reduce the amount of waste generated in the first place and reduce its hazardousness by reducing the presence of dangerous substances in products, then disposing of it will automatically become simpler. Waste prevention is closely linked with improving manufacturing methods and influencing consumers to demand greener products and less packaging.

2. Recycling and reuse: If waste cannot be prevented, as many of the materials as possible should be recovered, preferably by recycling. The European Commission has defined several specific 'waste streams' for priority attention, the aim being to reduce their overall environmental impact. This includes packaging waste, end-of-life vehicles, batteries, electrical and electronic waste. EU directives now require Member States to introduce legislation on waste collection, reuse, recycling and disposal of these waste streams. Several EU countries are already managing to recycle over 50 percent of packaging waste.

3. Improving final disposal and monitoring: Where possible, waste that cannot be recycled or reused should be safely incinerated, with landfill only used as a last resort. Both these methods need close monitoring because of their potential for causing severe environmental damage. The EU has recently approved a directive setting strict guidelines for landfill management. It bans certain types of waste, such as used tyres, and sets targets for reducing quantities of biodegradable rubbish. Another recent directive lays down tough limits on emission levels from incinerators. The Union also wants to reduce emissions of dioxins and acid gases such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxides (SO2), and hydrogen chlorides (HCL), which can be harmful to human health.

That's all well and good when it comes to BMW, but what about other forms of solid waste? What is the EU doing to combat that, especially as latest figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) state that by 2020, we could be generating 45 percent more waste than we did in 1995.

Standardising waste management

Currently, most of what the EU throws away (67 percent) is either burnt in incinerators, or dumped into landfill sites. However both of these methods cause wanton environmental damage. Land-filling in particular also takes up more and more land space that can be used for agricultural or housing purposes.

On top of that, land-filling causes air, water and soil pollution, discharging carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) into the atmosphere and chemicals and pesticides into the earth and groundwater.

One idea that has been generating support is in using municipal sold waste to generate energy. Seeing as we seem to generate an never-ending stream of waste, one could argue it is even sustainable! With technology making the process cleaner and more economical, solid waste energy production could use a number of methods such as landfill gas capture, combustion, pyrolysis, gasification, and plasma arc gasification.

These methods, such as gasification, that revolve around breaking down the waste in order to generate gas to burn are much more environmentally sound then simply dumping solid waste or incinerating it, however some countries such as Japan have a very efficient 'waste-to-energy' system use incinerators to generate heat and steam.

However while all EU countries are working hard to reduce the amount of rubbish they send to landfills, there is not yet a standardised approach to solid waste disposal. While EU Council Directive 99/31/EC of 26 April 1999 was brought in to "prevent or reduce as far as possible negative effects on the environment from the land-filling of waste, by introducing stringent technical requirements for waste and landfills", the system still needs work in becoming economically and environmentally sustainable.

Relevant articles:

Powering homes with human waste | UK Landfills: The dirty facts | Italy's waste problems