From Sustainable Waste and Material Management towards sustainable material management

From Sustainable Waste and Material Management towards

Sustainable Material Management For Flanders and Europe, waste management is an innova-

tive market with sustainable concepts, whereas developing

and emerging countries are struggling to develop a sustainable waste management structure and infrastructure. ELFM is thought to be an interesting concept to achieve the transition from sustainable waste management to sustainable material management.

L. Cuyvers, T. Moerenhout en M. Pelgrims, ABO Group - Gent

With the idea of ‘temporary storage’ as the connection between past, present and future, a new step to a circular economy will be made.

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W

ithin time, raw materials are becoming scarcer and the cost for energy is rising.

In addition, soil, air and water pollution are also on the rise. Because of the changing consumption patterns, industrial development and urbanization, the problem of waste man-

agement is growing day by day. Traditional systems of waste disposal are no longer appropriate, nor sustainable. In Flanders and throughout Europe, recycling systems to produce materials or energy from all kinds of waste streams have become well established. On the contrary, in many developing and emerging countries the current waste management systems are still inadequate and unsustainable, if already existing. This problem occurs especially in the periphery of urban centers. In these developing countries it is still common practice to dispose waste and rubbish in unsafe landfills and illegal dumpsites. Local authorities are often unable to introduce integrated waste management systems due to the associated high costs and absence of the appropriate knowledge and technical skills. Very few models are capable of financing themselves while operating effectively. The implementation of sustainable waste management and recycling systems aims to reduce the consumption of natural

An advanced approach on sustainable material management: ELFMconcept Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM) of historic (and future) landfills is a concept, sprouted from the initial development of the Closing the Circle project, at the Remo Landfill in

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resources, while ensuring that any resources already taken from nature are reused many times, to keep the amount of waste to a minimum.

cy (OVAM), and representatives of the local communities. In 2011, a corporate vision on Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM) was approved by the OVAM Board of directors, which resulted in an operational programme over the period 2011-2015. In Flanders, OVAM (Public Waste Agency of Flanders) is The challenge is the competent authority in charge of waste, to implement a Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) transition plan and contaminated soil management. The based on a stepmain goal of this research programme is to by-step approach develop a comprehensive policy on resource within the ecomanagement to deal with the issue of former nomical, political landfills. and social context In order to investigate the opportunities of of the country.

ELFM, the Flemish Public Waste Agency (OVAM) is applying a three step approach including mapping, surveying and mining Houthalen-Helchteren. This concept is a key of these former landfills. As a result of the solution in order to close the material loops mapping and surveying almost 2.000 landtowards a circular materials’ economy. The fill sites, that will need to be dealt with, were ELFM concept has already been under develrevealed. Due to the limited number of tests opment since 2008. In literature, this concept concerning the separation and valorisation of ELFM is referred to as the safe conditionof landfilled waste, the feasibility of ELFM ing, excavation and integrated valorization of in the short term is not fully described yet. landfilled waste streams in the past or future, Based on the first experiences, the main drivas both materials and energy, using innovaers to introduce the ELFM concept on these tive transformation technologies and respecttype of landfills are the necessity of urgent ing the most stringent social and ecological remediation actions and the reclamation of land. The added value of land reuse for the criteria. future might close the financial gap in a sigThe concept of Enhanced Landfill Mining nificant way, making the implementation of thus needs to be related with Sustainable MaELFM feasible on former landfills. terial Management and will act as a catalyst Following the Flemish ELFM Consortium, in in order to evolve towards a circular materi2014 the European Enhanced Landfill Minals’ economy. Within the concept of ELFM, ing Consortium (EURELCO) was formally landfills are no longer considered to be a statestablished in order to provide the societal acic end phase, but a dynamic and temporary ceptance for the implementation of Enhanced step in the materials cycle.

Landfill Mining on an European level. On the 29th of April, a Flemish delegation was ELFM in Flanders and Europe welcomed by the European Commission to The ELFM concept has been under developdiscuss the future of Enhanced Landfill Minment since 2008 by the Flemish ELFM Coning in the EU-28. The European Commissortium, consisting of academic experts, sion is still focused on a containment strategy companies, the Flemish Public Waste Agen-

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© Lignum

for new waste, with an attempt to phase out landfilling. In this perspective, dealing with already landfilled waste is a relatively new perspective and of lesser priority within this policy. In this perspective, the idea of ‘temporary storage’ is in conflict with their containment strategy, with an attempt to phase out landfilling, for newly generated waste streams.

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Bridging the past, the present and the future Within the ELFM-concept, it is important not only to look at the past but to consider the actions in the present for future application. This aspect is very important in dealing with current, active landfills. Within the design of sanitary landfills, the construction and inventory of separate landfill cells with respect to the landfilled materials can catalyze the implementation and feasibility of ELFM in the future. These landfill cells are no longer considered to be a static entity within the landfill, but are used as temporary storage cells within the future perspective of these landfills and the perspective of innovative transformation technologies. This idea refers to an environmentally and structurally safe storage place, already permitting present in-situ recovery of materials and energy from waste streams and allows easy future access to resources whenever needed. The Temporary Storage is a new concept that enables optimization of waste recycling, in order to diminish landfilling and incineration of valuable ‘waste’ materials (potential resources).

For the future, this inventory and mono-landfill cells, must facilitate the retrieval of materials from former and abandoned landfills, thus also opening a gate to the past and realizing recycling with a time delay. With the idea of Temporary Storage as the connection between past, present and future, a new step to a circular economy will be made. To realize this vision, technology has to be developed, legislation has to be adapted and incentives have to be created, which enable a sound business case for the exploitation of the Temporary Storage concept.

Developing a Sustainable Waste Management system in South Asian Countries While sustainable waste awareness and waste management systems are executed in Flanders and Europe, only the first steps for implementing waste systems are taken in poor countries like Bangladesh. At the moment we are trying to banish waste in Flanders and redefine every ‘waste’ stream as a secondary raw material, waste is not yet defined in Bangladesh. The first conceptualization of

waste management is currently introduced in the major urban centers of Bangladesh.

The first priority is to organize waste collection and waste stream organization and centralization. This enables the urban centers to process and store the waste in an environmental responsible way. In fact, illegal and uncontrolled dumping is one of the major concerns that creates considerable negative environmental, social and health impacts.

Based on the technical knowledge and several decades of advanced waste management in Flanders, lessons can be learned of organizing such waste management systems in countries like Bangladesh. It is useful to ‘recycle’ parts of the previous Flemish waste management strategies during the waste-management-starting-period, and to translate those methodologies into the socio-economic reality of Bangladesh. The combination of Flemish expertise combined with Bangladeshi local knowledge can create an environment where a transition in waste management systems in Bangladesh is feasible in a shorter period than its implementation in Flanders some decades ago. Especially nowadays we understand better the final objective of waste management by eliminating waste as a whole and redefining each used material as a secondary raw material (ELFM, et cetera). By re-inventing a whole new waste management system in Bangladesh, this idea should be the target at all time. The biggest challenge, however, is to implement a transition plan based on a step-by-step approach with a sufficient level of ambition, but within the economic reality, the social context, the political challenges and the environmental reality of the country, to guarantee improvements on all time scales.

lars.cuyvers@abo-group.eu