Waste Minimization

7.
Waste Minimization

“Waste minimization comprises any activity to prevent or reduce the volume and/or environmental impact of waste that is generated, treated, stored or disposed of”.

Polokwane Declaration
The Polokwane Declaration, formulated in 2001 by members of Government (at National, Provincial and Local level), selected industrial representatives and civil society, states that there is a need for urgent action to reduce, reuse and recycle more waste. Furthermore the represented sectors recommitted themselves to the objectives of integrated pollution prevention and waste minimisation. The goals agreed on were a 50% reduction of waste generation and a 25% reduction in disposal by 2012 as well as the development of a plan for Zero Waste by 2022.

Source Reduction
The aim of source reduction is to promote sustainable development by PREVENTING the generation of wastes and the unnecessary and wasteful utilisation of resources such as water, energy and raw materials. The first and most important element of any waste management strategy is therefore waste prevention through source reduction.

Waste Reuse and Waste Exchange:
REUSE must not be confused with RECYCLING. Reuse of a product does not constitute a change in its physical or chemical properties. Reused waste materials (in
their original state) are often assigned a new purpose and “lease of life” e.g. by using an empty ice tub as a storage container or by increasing their values (e.g. through a restoration and/or repair).

An Integrated Waste Exchange (IWEX) website has been developed and launched by the City of Cape in May 2000 in a bid to reduce hazardous and general waste material going to landfill. The website service at
http://www.capetown.gov.za/IWEX, provides an "electronic market place" for unwanted and wanted waste resource materials. IWEX forms the information interface between companies and communities willing to trade waste according to the motto: ‘Your trash is your neighbour's treasure.’ The IWEX site lists all nationally available and requested waste materials where special emphasis is placed on reducing hazardous waste volumes and expanding traditional recycling markets in and around Cape Town.

Waste Recycling
Recycling entails the physical product manufacturing from waste materials which is only done by local businesses who are technically equipped to be able to change the properties of a former waste material into a new product (e.g. making plastic pellets out of plastic waste, melting waste glass for new bottles and melting beverage cans for new steel appliances.

There is a distinction between close loop and open loop recycling. Close loop recycling happens either within the same company where waste materials from one process is “internally recycled” for another process step or it is a situation where companies exchange each others waste materials for recycling without any other outside waste streams incorporated.

POLLUTION NEWS
http://pollutionnews.blogspot.com/
Sumber:
Core Notes for Module 6 (Elective) of the Course
“Environmental Engineering – Sustainable Development in Coastal Areas”
Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)
Cape Town, South Africa 2006
Available to Distance Learners on www.dlist-benguela.org