Energy Efficiency — Towards Zero Waste

Girardet’s chapter 10, on extended producer responsibility — “the producer is responsible for the whole life cycle of a product” — set against the fifteen-fold growth in world economic activity from 1950 to 2000.

Part of the New City reading list — the books Kyle worked through while building the The New City thesis. Indexed on that page.

Notes

• From 1950 to 2000, the world’s economic activities increased fifteen fold. The growth of consumer societies all over the world has seen a large increase in solid waste produced per head, and the waste mix has also become ever more complex. Entirely new ways were found to use earth’s resources and to combine atoms and molecules into materials that don’t occur in nature—such as halogenated hydrocarbons, used in making plastics. Over the last 50 years, we have taken for granted that our wastes are deposited in holes in the ground. However, many of the materials in our wastes are taken from nature but can’t re reabsorbed by it.
• We clearly need to take a fresh look at waste—how it is generated in the first place and how it is managed. In an urbanizing world, in which cities use the bulk of the world’s resources and discharge most wastes, conventional linear waste disposal, in which mixed wastes are dumped in holes in the ground or incinerated, is not a sustainable option. New circular systems need to take their place. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE
• ECOPROFIT
• The Austrian city of Graz has developed an innovative approach to pollution prevention by vigorous collaboration with local companies. ECOPROFIT benefits local environments while helping companies to profit from upgrading their production and waste management systems. It is an on-going initiative that gives small and mid-sized enterprises consultative and financial support for integrated environmental management and cleaner production methods. The measures are targeted at the waste and energy sectors as well as at organizational restructuring.
• ECOPROFIT persuaded local companies that it is more cost effective to avoid toxic emissions and wastes than to discharge them into the environment. Information and technical assistance to local companies are coupled with marketing support. Information provision has proved more effective than regulation. Incentives include the promotion of participating companies to the local community as ecological market leaders.
• The goal of each project is to identify measures that can lead to the minimization of waste and emission through increased efficiency using the following principles
  • The producer is responsible for the whole life cycle of a product, including energy consumption and emissions during the use of the product, its reparability and the ability to be recycled and disposed of. (Accountability)
  • Anything that leaves the production process should be considered a product or raw material that can eventually reused in another production process.
  • Every product is optimized regarding reparability and recyclability.
  • Production is based on renewable sources of energy and substances that, as far as possible, are based on recycled (secondary) materials.
  • The producer chooses materials from renewable resources and releases wastes in a way that does not diminish nature.
  • The producer reduces energy demand to a level that can be met by renewable energy systems.
• Waste prevention: Recycling and reuse; and improving final disposal and monitoring
  • If ways can be found to reduce the amount of waste generated in the first place and lessen 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.
  • However, 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 steams’—such as packaging waste, end of life vehicles, batteries, electrical and electronic waste — for priority attention, aiming to minimize their environmental impact.
  • Only waste that cannot be recycled or reused should be safely incinerated, with landfill as a last resort. EU directives set strict guidelines for landfill management. They ban certain types of waste, such as used tires, and have set targets for reducing quantities of biodegradable trash. One directive sets tough limits on incinerator emissions.
• The effect of the legislation has been remarkable. Entire production processes have been redesigned to improve recycling of end-of-life products.