Fly-tipped refridgerator, South Glamorgan, Wales

Source: Michael St Maur Sheil


THE PROBLEM

The rapidly increasing quantities of waste generated in European countries are a major concern for Europe's environment (see Chapter 15). It is estimated that Europe produces annually over 250 million tonnes of municipal waste and more than 850 million of industrial waste. The annual average rate of increase of these wastes since 1985 in the OECD European area is estimated at around 3 per cent. Present disposal and processing capacity is probably not sufficient to deal with the expected growth. Often, existing facilities are not adequate to ensure acceptable environmental standards. The siting of new facilities usually encounters considerable opposition from local people concerned with the potential risks for their local communities.

Major constraints to safe management are imposed by significant changes in the quality of waste. Increasing amounts of discarded products contain substances now recognised to be toxic or highly toxic. Improper management and illegal dumping of waste, particularly hazardous and toxic waste, pose increasing threats to the environment and human health. Transfrontier movements of such waste from countries with strict regulations towards less-regulated countries increase the potential environmental risk of waste disposal in countries with insufficient control. There are increasing attempts to bring these problems under control by introducing national and international legislation.

Waste issues in Europe become apparent when the environmental impacts of waste management practices are examined:

However, it is the production of waste in the first place which causes major environmental impacts. Waste production implies the use of material and energy and the depletion of the Earth's renewable and non-renewable resources (see Chapter 13). Waste issues and their solutions are inevitably linked to production and consumption throughout all stages of the life-cycle of materials and the use of energy (see Chapter 12).

Waste is also regarded as a 'second generation' pollution problem to which other problems are eventually reduced. Since the 1970s, European countries have achieved important progress in reducing emissions into air and water from production processes by imposing strict emissions standards on conventional pollutants. However, as a result of their single-media mandate, environmental regulations have addressed air and water pollution problems separately. The result has been to move pollution problems to the least regulated environmental medium and the least controlled form of pollution. The implementation of emission control technologies has often resulted in increased amounts of solid waste from production processes. In addition, the concentration of hazardous substances in solid residues has increased.

European countries today recognise that reducing pollution loads requires an integrated pollution control strategy. A hierarchy of preferred options for waste management was adopted in 1976 by OECD countries (Box 36A). Reducing waste at source not only minimises the impact of waste treatment and disposal, it also enhances the efficient use of raw materials. However, despite the increasing emphasis on waste prevention, wastes have increased. Landfill and incineration, instead of recycling, are still the predominant practices in waste management, although differences exist between countries (Table 36.1). Waste often still escapes control or avoids strict regulations through transfrontier movement across European countries and from Europe to developing countries.

THE CAUSES

Waste production is one of the most revealing indicators of the interactions between human activities and environmental systems. Increased waste production in Europe follows production and consumption trends. Per capita production of municipal waste increases with living standards. More products and activities inevitably imply more waste. One of the most dramatic changes leading to increasing amounts of waste is the production and consumption of goods that last less time. However, the quantities of goods and services produced and consumed is only one side of the waste problem. Waste is often the result of inefficient energy and materials management by producers and consumers in all sectors of activity. Product design and manufacturing processes ultimately affect the quantity and quality of waste streams in all stages of the product life-cycle. In addition, consumer choice and product use play a major role. Finally, the environmental impacts of increasing quantities of waste are strongly influenced by disposal methods and practices.

European countries rely predominantly on landfill for disposing of their waste. In the past, most landfills were rudimentary waste dumps without the necessary requirements to protect the soil and groundwater. This has frequently resulted in contamination where the adverse effects could be reversed only at extremely high costs. Landfills produce leachate that, if not collected, contaminate the groundwater with heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, manganese and zinc, as well as ammonia and organic compounds such as PCBs. In addition, landfills are one of the largest contributors to the total emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Measures to control landfill emissions are now specified in most regulations adopted by European countries. These normally require providing impermeable bottom-layers and building leachate collection systems and treatment plants as well as gas recovery and destruction systems. Continuous monitoring and care after closure are also recommended, although many European landfills currently in operation are not properly equipped for these activities. The discrepancy across European countries regarding the state of landfill sites is reflected in the scanty available information and low level of monitoring activities.

The second most common method of waste disposal after landfill is incineration. In some European countries, waste incineration increased considerably during the 1970s but has remained constant since the mid-1980s due to public opposition to new incineration plants combined with increasing capital and operation costs. Incineration is considered most suitable to reduce waste volume (by as much as 80 per cent) and to recover energy from solid residuals. However, concerns exist about the health and environmental effects of toxic substances that are released or formed during incineration (Table 36.2). Emissions from incinerators include metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury, chromium, tin and zinc. Organic compounds are released as uncombusted residues of chemical substances present in waste or generated during combustion. Incinerators also emit large quantities of compounds generally referred to as acid gases, including HCl, HF, SO2 and NOx. State-of-the-art incineration technologies can substantially reduce the emissions of such contaminants into air, but most of these substances will be found in solid residues from incinerator plants. Incineration produces vast quantities of fly and bottom ashes (Table 36.3) which contain hazardous metals (eg, cadmium and lead) and organic compounds (eg PAHs, PCBs, PCDDs and PCDFs).

Recycling capacity varies considerably across countries and between waste streams. In OECD Europe, one third of paper, glass and metal in municipal waste is submitted to recycling operations and one quarter of the organic fraction is incinerated to reclaim energy (Yakowitz, 1992). Recycling increased steadily between 1975 and 1985 but has remained constant or declined since 1985. The efforts to increase recycling rates have been strongly offset by increasing waste production trends and by the difficulties of finding a market for recovered materials. These difficulties have become evident in the most far-reaching German attempt to push the limits of recycling (see Chapter 15).

Economic factors play a critical role in choices to avoid generating waste or to manage waste production through one of the available options. Virgin materials are generally more competitive than secondary or recycled ones, although the price of virgin materials usually does not fully incorporate the environmental costs of extraction and processing nor the cost of their disposal. Different patterns of waste management across countries are also clearly linked to trends in the costs associated with different options for managing waste. In most European countries disposal of municipal waste in landfill is still the cheapest option (Figure 36.1). In countries where the cost of disposal on land is relatively lower, a greater proportion of waste goes to landfill. In other countries, tighter environmental standards have raised the price of waste disposal by landfill, particularly for toxic and hazardous waste, pushing industries towards treatment and recycling. However, the export of hazardous waste still remains a more competitive option than waste minimisation. According to OECD, the aggregate annual marginal savings to waste generators achieved in Europe through transfrontier waste movements represents roughly ECU200 to 250 million and the potential avoided costs average ECU250 per tonne, considering the overall cost of packaging, labelling and transportation. This is true even considering distances over 5000 km (OECD, 1991).

Different levels of regulatory strictness and disposal costs between European countries encourage increased waste movements towards less-regulated countries and particularly from Western to Eastern European countries. In the OECD European area there are some 100 000 annual transfrontier movements corresponding to more than 2 million tonnes of hazardous waste. In countries with stringent regulations, the wastes most likely to be exported, legally or illegally, are the highly hazardous ones, since these are the most expensive to treat domestically.

THE CONSEQUENCES

The lack of reliable data on the quantities and quality of various waste streams, their sources and disposal routes throughout Europe makes it impossible to quantify the overall environmental impact of waste production and management. However, indications of the dimension of the problems can be derived by the available data on waste production and management reported by national agencies and examined in Chapter 15. The assessment of the state of the environment (Part II of this report) shows that all environmental media are affected by increasing quantities of waste and improper disposal.

Past improper waste management practices have significantly affected soil and groundwater. All European countries are faced with the current and potential risk of old waste dumps. Although data on current soil contamination are not available throughout the whole European territory, some countries have started to register contaminated sites and to identify those which require immediate action. More than 55 000 are currently registered in only six countries of the European Union, more than 22 000 of which are in critical conditions (see Table 7.5). These sites are contaminated by heavy metals, organic chemicals, oils, pesticides, radioactive materials, asbestos and other hazardous minerals. Extrapolating to the whole of Europe, the total contaminated land area has been estimated to be between 47 000 and 95 000 km2, between 1000 and 3000 km2 of which originate from landfill (Franken, in press). The area of groundwater potentially polluted by point sources is estimated to be less than 1 per cent of the European territory. However, this area is often close to points of groundwater abstraction, causing significant threats to public water supply (Chapter 5) .

Potential costs of clean-up are extremely difficult to determine because they depend on the type and extension of pollution as well as on the characteristics of the site. They also depend on clean-up standards and techniques for soil decontamination. Estimated remediation costs for the most critical sites in the European Union are around ECU27 billion for a 15-year long-term plan (Carrera and Robertiello, 1993). However, the cost of remedial actions already carried out in countries such as Germany (ECU228 million) or the Netherlands (ECU1300 million) show that this figure underestimates the costs considerably (Table 7.5). Waste-related land and groundwater contamination is expected to be even more serious in Central and Eastern Europe due to past improper waste management and the flows of toxic waste from Western to Central and Eastern European countries (see Chapter 15). When an accurate assessment of waste-related land contamination becomes possible, the true high costs of clean-up will be able to be assessed, which in many cases might prove to be prohibitive.

RESPONSES

European countries have adopted various regulatory measures to minimise waste and ensure its safe management. Different regulatory frameworks have emerged which establish:

  1. programmes to encourage waste reduction, re-use and recycling;
  2. standards and procedures to ensure safe storage, treatment and disposal; and
  3. programmes to activate clean-up of contaminated sites.

In addition, international cooperation is being pursued to achieve control of transfrontier movement of hazardous waste.

Four guiding principles for the prevention and safe management of waste have emerged:

Control options

At each stage in the product life-cycle, from production to final disposal, various control options can be considered to reduce the amount and toxicity of waste. These measures are oriented to regulate products, sources, emissions and effects (Table 36.4). Priority is given to five strategies summarised by the so-called 5R approach recommended by the Senior Advisers to ECE Governments on Environment and Water Problems (UNECE, 1992). These are based on: reduction, replacement, recovery, recycling and reutilisation of industrial products, residues or waste.

Waste reduction

Waste can be avoided or reduced at source through the reformulation of products or processes (Box 36B). Clean products and technologies are meant to reduce waste from manufacturing as well as from final use of consumer goods. Product and process reformulation can also reduce the concentration of hazardous and toxic substances in waste streams by replacing them with other substances in the products and manufacturing process or by simply improving operational and maintenance procedures. Major results can be achieved in the chemical industry. Product reformulation can, for example, lead to the replacement of chlorinated solvents with water-based solvents. Process reformulation can simply require introducing closed-loop processes to replace cleaning systems. There are several examples of product, process and materials substitution among the various industrial sectors. Evaluating 500 case studies on the implementation of single or combined strategies adopted by industry, Huisingh (1989) found that product reformulation can result in 70 to 100 per cent reduction of certain hazardous waste streams, and can eliminate other emissions of toxic substances in air and water. Some of the most impressive results are among the producers of pharmaceuticals, organic chemicals, microelectronics, and automobiles, as well as photographic processing.

Preliminary results of a recent project conducted in The Netherlands ­ PRISMA: Project on Industrial Successes with Waste Prevention to assess waste prevention efforts by industries ­ show that successful reduction of hazardous substances in industrial waste streams can be achieved with substantial economic pay-back and other indirect benefits. An assessment of 45 prevention options showed that good house-keeping measures resulted in 25 to 30 per cent reduction in chemical substances, and technological change between 30 and 80 per cent reduction of waste and emissions. Substitution of raw materials resulted in the elimination of hazardous substances such as cyanide (zinc plating) and solvents (degreasing). Almost all cases (39) turned out to be cost-saving or neutral, with some extreme cases, for example, where a company saved more than Dfl1 million per annum (de Hoo et al, 1991).

Re-use, recovery and recycling

Once wastes have been generated, the preference accorded by the waste management hierarchy is for re-use, recovery and recycling. Re-use is effected by simple on-site or at-home operations to collect materials and put them back into the production and consumption process, instead of disposing of these substances within manufacturing and household waste streams. Re-use of industrial residues requires changes in in-plant practices plus source segregation and treatment in order to transform these wastes into secondary raw materials. The same concept applies to recycling, although this implies separation and treatment, which generally take place at off-site facilities, as well as setting up networks to exchange secondary materials among industries. According to the International Reclamation Bureau (IRB) ­ a non-profit organisation which represents 7000 national recycling organisations from 44 countries ­ recycling is the whole system in which obsolete or redundant products and materials are reclaimed, refined or processed, and converted into new, perhaps quite different, products. Thus, while re-use is performed on-site by the same waste generators, recycling requires a more complex organisational, economic and technological structure, the creation of which ultimately leads to significant economic impacts.

The difficulties in creating a stable market for secondary materials have limited the progress towards recycling hazardous waste in important industrial sectors. Among the constraints to increased recycling are: the limited quality of by-products, transportation costs, high recovery costs, and the low cost of alternative raw materials; there is also increasing concern for the environmental impact of recycling. On the other hand, several policy analysts dispute the desirability of creating such a stable market for toxic substances through recycling, pointing out that the new interests created by establishing such a market can indeed discourage hazardous waste reduction (Wynne, 1987; Caldart and Ryan, 1985).

Treatment

There is increasing concern in European countries to specify which waste disposal option is most appropriate for which waste stream. There is no single treatment option that can best ensure safe management of all different waste streams. The most common method of treating municipal waste is incineration. The future development of incineration as a method for disposing of waste greatly depends on the capability to reduce emissions by processing the waste submitted to incineration and adopting most up-to-date technologies for gas filtering and scrubbing. Methods for treating potentially hazardous waste range from neutralisation to incineration aimed at reducing the toxicity of waste through biological, chemical, physical and thermal processes. Biological methods include activated sludge and aerated lagoons. Chemical methods include oxidation, reduction, precipitation and other neutralisation technologies. Physical treatments include air stripping and carbon absorption. Thermal technologies include incineration and fluidised bed combustion. All these treatment technologies produce emissions and residuals which may still contain toxic substances. The extent to which these residuals can be avoided or contained depends upon the characteristics of specific substances and on the proper design and implementation of treatment plants.

Several European countries have now established emission limits for the incineration of municipal and hazardous waste. EC Directives 89/369/EEC and 89/339 on the prevention and reduction of air pollution from municipal waste incineration set standards for new and existing municipal waste incinerators. In a number of countries such as Austria, Germany and Sweden, new incineration plants should meet the best available technology (BAT) criteria in order to comply with emission limits. Existing plants need also to meet the same criteria to obtain renewal of operating permits. Rapid progress in the development of waste incineration technologies has outstripped the emission limit values set in the current regulations requiring systematic updating of such limits. The European Commission is now updating emission limit values for municipal waste and setting new limits for the incineration of hazardous waste (Table 36.5).

Landfill

Excluding sea dumping of wastes, which has been phased out by the Oslo Convention, the least preferred management alternative is waste disposal on land or under ground. Reducing the amount of waste disposed of in landfill is considered a priority in most European countries and listed in the waste management strategy of the EC Fifth Environmental Action Programme (CEC, 1993). Thus far, however, only The Netherlands has set reduction targets for landfill to 5 per cent of the overall solid waste by the year 2000. The Netherlands has also banned landfill for certain potentially hazardous wastes. The European Commision has proposed a Directive on landfills to harmonise reporting requirements (see also Box 36E).

Cleaning up contaminated sites

European countries have adopted various approaches to identify contaminated sites, assess potential risks and take the necessary remedial actions. In principle all costs for these actions are expected to be borne by the parties who have contributed to the improper disposal of contaminated waste at these sites. Even if no regulations concerning hazardous waste were in place at the time of such improper practices, acts that cause harm or damage are a sufficient ground for complaint and recovery. On this basis, a number of European countries such as France, Germany and the UK have instituted a 'strict liability' regime which implies that causation needs to be shown but negligence need not be proven. The regime of strict liability in these countries aims at ensuring that the high cost of remediation of the damage caused by an economic activity is borne by the operator. Denmark and The Netherlands, on the other hand, finance remedial actions through public funds. The European Commission is now working towards the harmonisation of liability regimes in EU Member States for all environmental damages caused by improper management of waste. A green paper on Remedying Environmental Damage has been issued by the European Commission as a basis for an EU-wide liability system in accordance with the prevention and polluter pays principles.

Preventing waste movements

The importance of a coordinated action at the international level to control waste movements and reduce the potential threats of improper waste management has become clear with the discovery of the damage caused by transfrontier movements of hazardous waste. The Basle Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal (UNEP, 1989), signed by 116 countries in 1989, allocates to the exporter states the responsibility for ensuring that exported waste is managed in a safe manner. The convention does not forbid waste shipments, but establishes that shipments must receive the written informed consent of importing states before they can take place. Twenty-nine European countries and the EU are party to the convention. Of those, 24 have signed and 15 have ratified the convention (Table 36.6).

In EU countries, the export of waste is controlled under Council Regulation 93/259/EEC, which updates and extends the controls originally introduced in 1984 and implements the provisions of the Basle Convention. Under the Regulation, all exports of waste for final disposal outside the Union and EFTA are banned. There are also specific controls on hazardous wastes being exported for recovery, and such exports from the EU, other than to OECD countries, will be banned after 1997 as a consequence of Decision II/12 taken at the Second Conference of Parties at Geneva in March 1994.

Transfrontier movements of wastes within Europe are influenced by a number of factors, including waste management capacity, regulatory standards and controls over transfrontier movements. Improvements in these respects across Europe, and particularly implementation of the Basle Convention, will help reduce these movements.

Since the movements of hazardous waste within European countries are strongly influenced by the different regulatory requirements between countries for disposing of waste, it has become evident that the harmonisation of waste management standards across European countries is a critical step towards reducing the risk of transfrontier hazardous waste movements.

SUSTAINABLE GOALS

The challenge facing European countries in the next decade is to bring the use of materials and their management in balance with sustainability. Wastes should be minimised at such a level that natural resources and the environment are not threatened by their production and management. This requires changes in production and consumption patterns and modification in lifestyles (UNCED, 1992).

In order to quantify sustainability goals, biophysical limits to materials consumption and their management need to be established. This requires a better understanding of the interactions between ecological and economic systems as they are mediated by technological change and innovation. It is generally accepted, however, that current waste production trends and expected increases under current economic trends in European countries are unsustainable. To achieve sustainability entails both minimising the use of materials and reducing the impact of waste disposal.

Waste minimisation is the first priority. It requires the development of new resource-efficient methods and technologies. The capacity for re-use, recovery and recycling of waste needs to be ensured and sustained through positive incentives. Waste disposal needs to be reduced to a minimum while ensuring compliance of disposal and treatment facilities with health and environmental standards. This can be achieved only by providing the appropriate infrastructure, know-how and financial resources. In addition, the harmonisation of quality standards for waste management facilities is necessary if comparable levels of protection for the environment and human health are to be achieved throughout Europe.

STRATEGIES

The following strategies for waste production and management are crucial to move towards sustainable patterns of production and consumption:

  1. Reducing waste production per unit of GDP is a priority in all European countries. Priority waste streams need to be identified according to their potential impact due to their quantities and hazard. Setting reduction targets for selected waste streams is critical to explore the options as well as for assessing the economic costs and their distribution between the various economic sectors. Measures to be considered range from adjusting the price of raw materials to regulations which specify waste minimisation requirements for production processes and products. Implementation plans could be developed through 'strategic discussion tables' with the target groups that directly influence the production and consumption patterns which generate waste (Box 36C).
  2. Setting waste minimisation targets is also critical to designing waste management plans aimed at reducing consumption of resources and avoiding the impact of waste disposal. Most European countries require that plans should be developed in order to maximise re-use, recovery and recycling of useful materials and energy while ensuring safe management of waste that cannot be avoided. The design and implementation of integrated waste management plans entails identification of the most appropriate recycling, treatment and disposal options for specific waste streams (Box 36D). Strategic environmental assessment, eco-auditing and product life-cycle analysis could help explore waste prevention and management alternatives. In addition, environmental impact assessment procedures can help identify the proper design, technology and location for waste treatment facilities.
  3. Building the information base on the sources, composition and management of various waste streams is necessary for developing and implementing waste minimisation and management strategies. Accurate and reliable data need to be made available in order to:
    1. identify priority waste streams and minimisation targets;
    2. establish integrated waste management systems;
    3. optimise waste recovery and recycling;
    4. develop ecological balances for assessing waste management alternatives;
    5. implement the self-sufficiency and proximity principles.
    Categories of information on waste include:
    1. waste production and management trends;
    2. waste composition and potential hazard;
    3. actual and potential waste minimisation;
    4. waste movements and flows;
    5. waste treatment/disposal capacity and costs;
    6. environmental impacts of current waste management practices.
  4. Establishing monitoring networks is needed to ensure early warning of potential contamination at waste sites and to assess the impact of waste management and major risk pathways, including discharge to air and groundwater (Box 36E).
  5. Inventories of potential contaminated sites need to be developed as a basis for setting priorities and planning clean-up actions. The present information is not adequate to make an assessment of potential risks and an evaluation of foreseeable costs of clean-up. This could require cooperation between Western and Central and Eastern European countries to share information, knowledge and financial resources.
  6. The implementation of the principles established in the Basle Convention is necessary to ensure monitoring and control of waste shipments. The harmonisation of hazardous waste management standards across European countries will be necessary if measurable results are to be achieved to minimise transfrontier movements and their potential risks.