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The Waste Hierarchy The waste hierarchy has been adopted by all EU countries. It identifies waste treatment and disposal options, ranking them in order of increasing environmental impact. Waste reduction is placed at the top of the hierarchy, having the least environmental impact and disposal, usually meaning disposal, is placed at the bottom of the hierarchy.Reduction This is the elimination of waste in the first place and has huge environmental and financial benefits. This can be achieved in a number of ways, for example:
Reuse Reuse is when an item is used again either for the same or a different purpose with no, or very little, alteration or remanufacturing. Taking clothes to a charity shop for other people to buy and wear again and using the same shopping bag over and over again are major reuse activities we are all involved in. Reuse along with repair is even more environmentally friendly than recycling. This avoids the use of energy through breaking down and remanufacturing the items.  Recycling Recycling is a process whereby old products, items or materials that are of no further use in their current form, are broken down and re-manufactured into new products. For example, food cans which are made mainly of steel can be collected and sent for recycling where they are fragmented and melted. The liquid metal is poured into a mould and then rolled into a coil. The coils are sent out to different industries where they are used to make new steel products, such as cars, bikes, bridges, ships, paperclips or food cans. Recycling material saves natural resources and environments, and requires very little energy. It also creates less pollution than making new products from raw materials and saves the costs associated with extracting raw materials. Recycling includes composting, which has the added benefits of reducing the need for artificial fertilizers and peat based composts. Recovery Recovery usually refers to recovering energy from waste (EfW), but includes the treatment of waste to prepare it as a fuel. Certain elements of waste are difficult to reuse and recycle, particularly plastics, but because they are made from oil and have a high calorific value they are suitable as a fuel. Combustible elements can be separated from general waste after recyclable materials have been removed to produce what is called a refuse derived fuel (RDF) or secondary recovered fuel (SRF). This material is sent to purpose built incinerators for burning to produce energy. This can be put to beneficial use by producing electricity; providing high pressure steam for industry, district and other municipal heating schemes, or other thermal plants; and, providing the fuel in cement kilns. EfW plants can also be used as incinerators where sorted or unsorted waste is burnt and energy is recovered for beneficial uses. EfW can also be used for gasification and pyrolysis, where waste is heated in the presence of very low levels of oxygen (or none at all), so the waste only partially burns or does not burn at all. This process produces a mixture of gases including methane and hydrogen, which can be burnt to recover energy for electricity production, or for feeing directly into the national gas system. Disposal  Disposal usually refers to landfill, which should be the last option for getting rid of waste. Despite our best efforts to recycle and recover energy from waste there is invariably material left that is not suitable for recycling or incineration, or is a by-product of these processes. Landfill is basically the production of specially engineered holes in the ground, often because of quarrying or clay extraction for brick making, in areas where the underlying geology is impermeable. Waste is deposited in the holes and compacted when full, prior to being capped with an impermeable layer and top soil. Landfill has historically been the cheapest method, compared to others for disposing of waste. However, suitable sites for landfill are running out, and the introduction of landfill tax has resulted in waste recycling and recovery becoming more commonplace. Although any potentially recyclable or compostable materials are lost when put into landfill, the compacting and capping of the waste can cause an anaerobic reaction to take place. Any organic material will decompose to produce methane, which in modern landfills is captured and burnt to produce electricity.
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