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Developed in the 70s by the EU, the Waste Management Hierachy is a great way to visualize what waste disposal methods are preferred.
The Waste Management Hierarchy was designed (first by the EU and now by other governments and entities) to acknowledge that no single method of waste management will be able to manage the amount of waste people and businesses generate. The EPA’s hierarchy ranks four waste management techniques from most to least environmentally preferred.
The top, or most preferred, technique is reducing and resuing. This refers to keeping items in use for longer by repairing or reusing products, as well as significantly reducing reliance on items (i.e. buying less). Reducing and resuing is known as waste prevention. This method also includes conserving energy and natural resources and reducing pollution.
Next in the hierarchy is recycling and composting. This ensures products have a another life (recycling) or are returned to the earth (composting). Both recycling and composting turn products into raw materials.
Waste to Energy as a waste disposal method sits underneath Source Reduction and Reuse, and Recycling/Composting. It is third on the list and is the second-least desirable form of waste disposal. There are multiple types of energy recovery including combustion, gasification, pyrolization, anaerobic digestion, and landfill gas (LFG) recovery.
The last form of waste management is treatment and disposal. The EPA encourages every form of waste management before resorting to disposal.
The European Union developed an original version fo the Waste Management Hiearchy in 1975. The EPA posted their version to their website in 2015.
Yes! There are multiple versions on the internet, but they all typically follow the same format and hierarchy.
There are a number of ways to reduce potential waste before it needs to be disposed. WTE is a method of getting rid of waste, the EPA wants to encourage everyone to find ways to avoid disposal first!
No. WTE takes waste and turns it into another form of waste (toxic ash). Although it reduces the volume of waste and produces energy it still has a number of concerns with its environmental and is therefore criticized as not truly a sustainable method.
We don't just talk the talk, at Smart Plastic we prove everything we say with credible third-party testing. Below you will find the corresponding tests that apply to all our claims.
