Abstract
• The circular economy requires a shift from weight-based targets to impact-driven targets. • A new environmental LCA tool is introduced to aid comprehensive policy development. • Whole life cycle thinking is applied to account for the environmental impacts of waste. • A holistic view of the environmental cost of waste is presented which promotes prevention and the circular economy ethos. Resources and waste strategies have recently seen a shift in focus from weight-based recycling targets to impact-driven policies. To support this transition, numerous decision-support tools were developed to help identify waste streams with the highest impacts. However, the majority of these tools focus solely on greenhouse gas emissions and show a narrow picture of the overall environmental impacts. Furthermore, they cover burdens associated with direct waste management activities and hence fall short when it comes to highlighting the substantial benefits that can be achieved by preventing waste in the first place. This paper quantitatively demonstrates the necessity to adopt impact-based targets that go beyond estimating the greenhouse gas emissions of waste and highlights the substantial benefits of waste reduction and prevention. Using a state-of-the-art waste environmental footprint tool, the paper quantifies the overall environmental impacts of Scotland's household waste and shows how targeting ‘heavy’ materials does not necessarily have the highest overall environmental benefit. Results show that embodied environmental impacts of household waste dominate the total environmental burdens, contributing more than 90% to the whole life cycle impacts, and hence policymakers should prioritise interventions that aim at waste reduction and prevention. Moreover, our analysis shows that food and textile wastes are high-priority materials in Scotland, with the largest contribution to overall environmental burdens; up to 42% and 30%, respectively. Considering the overall environmental impacts of specific waste materials will enable policymakers to develop more granular and targeted interventions to accelerate our transition to a sustainable circular economy.
Highlights
The world produces over 2 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste every year, which is expected to rise to 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050 (Kaza et al, 2018)
Results show that embodied environmental impacts of household waste dominate the total environmental burdens, contributing more than 90% to the whole life cycle impacts, and policymakers should prioritise interventions that aim at waste reduction and prevention
Given that the perspective is from the resource and waste management (RWM) sector, policymakers have the power to influence change in this area only, approaches are waste-centred as opposed to consumption-based (Reike et al, 2018; van Ewijk and Stegemann, 2020; Wiprächtiger et al, 2021)
Summary
The world produces over 2 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste every year, which is expected to rise to 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050 (Kaza et al, 2018). A recent example is Europe’s new circular economy action plan that includes a recycling target of 65% for municipal waste (European Commission, 2020; European Parliament, 2018) This is a weight-based target that prioritises the diversion of heavy waste materials from landfills and subsequently maximises recycling rates rather than focusing on interventions that have the greatest environmental benefits. To support the shift toward a more circular economy, the focus should be on monitoring resources as opposed to waste (DEFRA, 2018; Van Ewijk and Stegemann, 2016), i.e. target the consumption of resources and optimise their reuse higher up the waste hierarchy This implies considering the impacts of materials that become waste from a life cycle perspective, i.e. including the embodied impacts in the production, manufacture, and transport of waste. Given that the perspective is from the RWM sector, policymakers have the power to influence change in this area only, approaches are waste-centred as opposed to consumption-based (Reike et al, 2018; van Ewijk and Stegemann, 2020; Wiprächtiger et al, 2021)
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