Waste reuse

A sustainable method to conserve natural resources in a circular economy

South Africa is faced with limited natural resources and the need to conserve these as far as possible. Our manufacturing industry is a major contributor to the consumption of natural resources, which presents significant opportunities to reduce consumption and conserve natural and virgin resources. By Sandile Khumalo

ccording to the National Waste

AManagement Strategy 2020 drafted by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, under the waste minimisation pillar, there is a drive to divert 40% of waste from landfill in the next five years.

This could be achieved through reuse, recycling and alternative waste treatment, but it remains recommended that care be taken when selecting the most efficient and sustainable mitigation method between the above.

Recycling vs reuse

It is important to highlight the difference between waste recycling and waste reuse, for the purposes of promoting waste efficiency and sustainability in waste handling and in the waste economy. In the recycling process, waste is reprocessed back into secondary raw material for manufacturing new products, which will require additional resources to be used in reprocessing, such as energy, water, and even virgin materials.

With reuse, on the other hand, waste is redirected for another purpose that will extend its life cycle in a different application. Waste reuse options mean fewer resources are required for reprocessing into raw materials, and the resource becomes a high-value secondary raw material in the manufacture of another product.

The main distinction between reuse and recycling is that waste reuse has the potential to positively impact on the efficiency of the selected waste management option, as scarce natural resources will be conserved; while recycling places demands on other scarce resources.

Industrial symbiosis advocates for the promotion of waste reuse for the benefit of resource efficiency and cleaner production. Diverting waste from going to landfill is important, but possibly more important is the method used to divert this waste. Waste diversion methods should ideally require minimal additional resources for reprocessing the waste, and should not create additional greenhouse gas emissions.

When waste is reused as input material for another product, the use of natural resources and greenhouse gas emissions are avoided or minimised, and there is a cost saving – thus making waste reuse a sustainable waste management option.

Striving for resource efficiency

The industrial symbiosis methodology uses a resource efficiency approach, where the waste resources of one company are recovered and reused by another company in order to recover and improve its value. Industrial symbiosis programmes build a network of businesses aimed at identifying mutually profitable links or synergies between businesses so that underutilised and undervalued resources from one business are recovered and reused elsewhere by another. The approach also contributes to promoting new, innovative business practices and technology development, creating opportunities for technology innovation and waste entrepreneurship. Industrial symbiosis advocates returning waste resources into the economy as high-value secondary raw materials for reuse, ensuring the circularity in waste resources and impacting on the sustainability of scarce resources.

Realising a circular economy

Among the benefits of waste reuse in the industrial symbiosis approach is its contribution to the realisation of a circular economy. A circular economy approach redirects waste into production cycles and keeps materials and resources in the economy, promoting circularity in waste, and ensuring that much of the value in waste is recovered.

Industrial symbiosis is an excellent approach to help deliver a circular economy because, through waste reuse interventions, it is able to create circularity in resource usage and conserve natural resources.

INCORPORATE INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS INTO YOUR PROCESSES

Individuals and companies who would like to include industrial symbiosis in their processes should kindly email ncpc@csir.co.za. For tools and guides on how industrial symbiosis works, visit www.ncpc.co.za.