01. Benefits

Waste management benefits

Sustainable waste management is a key concept of the circular economy and offers many opportunities:

Economic: waste management involves collecting, sorting, treating, recycling, and when properly facilitated providing a source of energy and resources. Therefore, it has a huge economic potential that needs to be leveraged by public and private entities.
Social: besides creating jobs, improved waste management leads to a better quality of life for local populations, by improving hygiene conditions and reducing health risks related to illegal dumping and inadequate garbage collection.
Environmental: the main advantage of sustainable waste management is to lessen the impact on the environment, by improving air and water quality and contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Besides, reducing food waste also helps reduce the heavy environmental cost of producing more.

02. Definition

What is waste management?

First of all, there are many types of waste: municipal (household, commercial and demolition waste), hazardous (industrial), biomedical, electronic (e-waste), radioactive, etc. Waste management includes the collection, transport, valorization and disposal of these waste. More broadly, it includes any activity involved in the organization of waste management from production to final treatment.

The main principles of waste management are:

Waste hierarchy, referring to the “3Rs rule” Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, waste prevention and minimisation being the most desirable goal.
Extended producer responsibility, adding all the environmental costs to the market price of a product, including end-of-life disposal.
The polluter pays principle, requiring that a waste generator pays for the appropriate disposal of the waste.

03. Impacts

Waste management methods

Waste management techniques include:

Landfills: a landfill, sometimes referred to as a garbage dump, is a place where waste is generally stored on the ground. Landfills are the most common and cheapest method for waste disposal in the world.
Incinerator: Incineration of waste is a technique of transformation by the action of fire. Waste combustion can be used to produce electricity and heat, but also is an important source of air pollution.
Recycling: recycling is the physical reprocessing of old materials such as metals, plastics and e-waste - industrial or household - into new products. The type of material collected for recycling can vary depending on the city and country.
Biological reprocessing: composting is a process of conversion and recovery of organic matter into a stabilized, hygienic, soil-like product rich in humic compounds: the compost. Anaerobic digestion is a process similar to composting, that allows the treatment of organic waste and sludge by fermentation in the absence of oxygen.
Waste collection: the collection of household waste is usually done by means of garbage trucks, which go to each point of garbage production to collect garbage. There are also collection systems where a network centralizes waste, such as automated vacuum collection.
Energy recovery: energy recovery from waste, often called waste-to-energy, is the process converting non-recyclable waste materials into usable heat, fuel or electricity through combustion, anaerobic digestion, gasification, pyrolyzation, etc.

04. Solutions

Waste management solutions

The Solar Impulse Label is granted to innovative waste management solutions that meet high standards of sustainability and profitability. Each solution goes through a strict assessment process performed by independent experts.

Jan 1970

Aggneo 2

Secondary aggregates produced from certain wastes to replace virgin materials in low carbon concrete

Utilities (Water, Energy, Waste)
Buildings & Constructions

Oct 2022

Upcyclean

A Local biomass valorization solution

Agrifood & Natural Environment
Utilities (Water, Energy, Waste)

Oct 2020

Aikan

Green energy and composts production from solid waste

Utilities (Water, Energy, Waste)
Agrifood & Natural Environment

Nov 2019

SMK Tomato Paste

Processing of fresh tomato to paste to reduce post-harvest losses

Agrifood & Natural Environment

05. Implementations

Waste management solutions implementations

Winnow by Winnow Solutions implemented by IKEA (Ingka Group) in Leiden (Netherlands) in 2019

Winnow by Winnow Solutions implemented by Marriott International in London (United Kingdom) in 2024

SEAB Energy - Flexibuster by SEaB Energy implemented by Sepur in Thieverval-Grignon (France) in 2019

Rockease Platform by Rockease implemented by VINCI Energies S.A. in Bordeaux (France) in 2022

Anaerobic bio-digester to proceed organic waste by ENWISE implemented by Auchan in Shanghai (China) in 2017

Too Good To Go by Too Good To Go implemented by City of Copenhagen in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2016

Too Good To Go by Too Good To Go implemented by Okay in Halle (Belgium) in 2024

Excess Materials Exchange (EME) by Excess Materials Exchange implemented by Enfield Council in Einfield (United Kingdom) in 2022

Pyrowave by Pyrowave implemented by Michelin in Clermont-Ferrand (France) in 2020

SAVE SAND by MS implemented by Vaills in Baho (France) in 2022

Aqua Assist by Drylet, Inc. implemented by Hera group in Sassuolo (Italy) in 2021

Coomtech SMR Technology by Coomtech Ltd implemented by Hive Aggregates in Retford (United Kingdom) in 2023

Arqlite Smart Gravel by Arqlite implemented by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in Los Angeles (United States) in 2021

Industrial-Scale Drying Unit for Waste Upcycling by Proseed implemented by Zenhäusern in Sion (Switzerland) in 2024

FIT Food Waste Monitoring Tech by LightBlue Environmental Consulting implemented by Business Mauritius in Mauritius (Mauritius) in 2021

FIT Food Waste Monitoring Tech by LightBlue Environmental Consulting implemented by Hotels Magic Costa Blanca in Benidorm (Spain) in 2023

06. Challenges

Challenges & disadvantages

Hazard: the first one while promoting recycling is to make sure both consumers and recyclers are protected from toxic and dangerous substances that can be found in waste.
High costs: moreover, this cannot be seen as a short-term lucrative investment as it obviously requires a lot of money to implement sustainable waste management strategies.
Quality of recycled products: downcycling, the recycling process that turns waste into products of inferior quality, can cause a problem regarding the quality of secondary products.

Connect with us

Any questions

Feel free to get in touch with us
pauline.michiels@solarimpulse.com

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