Box 36A Waste management hierarchy

  1. Reduce generation of wastes, eg, by more efficient processes in manufacturing, reduction of disposable material in consumer goods or increase of durability in products.
  2. Separate usable components of the waste at their source, eg, by more efficient control of effluents from manufacturing processes, separation of paper, glass, plastic and metals by householders, or concentration of used tyres or oil at collection centres.
  3. Re-use of waste products directly, if possible, eg, return of materials to the production process as in steel-making or cement kiln operations, burning of household wastes to recover energy or exchange of material which is a waste from one process but may be a material useful for another process.
  4. Transformation or other physical or chemical treatment in order to recycle usable materials from waste, eg, magnetic separation of ferrous scrap from household waste and subsequent use of the material to prepare ferrous products, reclamation of non-ferrous metals from mixed industrial wastes by thermal processes, re-refining of waste lubricating oils, or distillation and regeneration of spent solvents.
  5. Destruction of the waste by physico-chemical treatment or incineration, eg, neutralisation by mixing alkaline and acid wastes or burning of pumpable liquid waste or solid wastes.
  6. Permanent storage of the waste in or on land.
  7. Dumping at sea (to be avoided as far as possible).

Source: OECD