Putting waste to resource: How the Dutch government transforms waste problem into solutions
- Date2016-12-06 00:00
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Putting waste to resource: How the Dutch government
transforms waste problem into solutions
The
Netherlands has long been a pioneer in sustainability in both policy and
practice. According to a recent report, it was able to recycle no less than 64%
of its waste ？ most of which is incinerated to generate electricity. This has
resulted to only a small percentage ending up in landfill (Waste Management
World 2010: 1).
Besides
considering the environmental impact at the various stages of a product’s life cycle
- one which takes a circular design into account the product’s recycling,
reuse, and maintenance, the country has always strived to promote circular
economy especially in product design that tries to optimize sustainable use of
project and to recover materials from them.
A few initiatives such as local sourcing, eco-friendly design and
recycling are already in place in the Netherlands. This ensures that the
country can make real progress in developing the circular economy. With its
extremely high population density, established culture of waste recycling and a
geographical location that makes it both a logistics hub and one of the most
dynamic international centres for industrial design, the Netherlands has both
good reason and the considerable strengths needed to develop this approach even
further and become a real thought leader in this issue. (Ready for the Resource
Revolution 2015: 1).
An example is the city of Amsterdam. It has played a
catalytic role in this initiative. In November 2014, the city published its
vision and roadmap for becoming a “circular city. This strategy involves all
aspects of the circular economy: energy, waste, water management, health, air
pollution, etc. Its methodology relies on a collaborative model that brings
together businesses, start-ups, the resident population and NGOs to work on
specific pilot projects. These pilot projects include redeveloping a former
industrial area of the city to build a new district destined to become “the
largest circular economy test site” in the country.
In
fact, the Dutch government has laid down its plans on circular economy via its
“Waste to Resource”, a document which was released in 2014. It lays down the
country’s efforts to stimulate circular design in The Netherlands. It seeks to
bring about different institutions like academe, industry and business that
will synchronize circular design in the country.
The
Dutch government has articulated these in the following action points:
1.
Promoting sustainability at the
front of the chain
2.
Making consumption patterns
more sustainable
3.
Improving waste separation and
collection
4.
Focusing waste policy on a
circular economy
5.
Adopting an approach to
specific material chains and waste streams
6.
Developing and other financial
market incentives
7.
Connecting knowledge and education
to the circular economy
8.
Simplifying measurement
methods, indicators and certification labels
(Waste to Resource 2014: 2)
Enabling and regulating framework
Further
zooming into the waste problem, The Netherlands has been leading cutting-edge efforts
in “waste management structure.” Dutch
companies have mastered the expertise to get the maximum from their waste using
smart and sustainable solutions. Due to a lack of potential disposal sites and
the growing consciousness among the public at large, the forward-thinking
process of waste management in The Netherlands commenced in 1980s at a time
when awareness of the urgency to look for landfill alternatives (Ibid: 2).
It has
offered a rather practical approach and simple solution: avoid creating waste
as much as possible, ensure recovery of valuable raw materials from it, and generate
energy through incineration of residual waste. Dumping will ensue for left over
albeit in an environmentally friendly way. It is called the ‘Lansink’s Ladder’
after the member of the Dutch Parliament who proposed it. It was regulated in
1994 and forms part of the core of European Waste Framework Directive.
In The
Netherlands, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment is the one in
charge of the over-all environmental policies in the country. The Ministry has
the distinct role of ensuring national policy and strategies on the environment
in a national context, as well as making sure that the agreements, regulations,
legislations in the European Union (EU) are translated in national policies.
Specifically, an executive body of the Ministry is responsible for advising the
Ministry on the development and evaluation of national and EU waste policies
and regulations and providing support in implementation. (Government-wide
Programme for a Circular Economy, 2010)
The
Dutch government has firmly hold on to its belief that the issue of waste
disposal simply cannot got from landfilling to recycling. A few years back, the
country has to learn the hard way, for example, how crucial it is to ensure
that entire logistics chain is airtight. There are far more complex and
practical processed that need to be undertaken first. Thus, together with other
stakeholders like research institutions, it has moderately increase separation
from the source of waste to ensure that less and less waste goes to waste
disposal sites. It has also stirred collaboration with foreign governments and
public-private partnerships to set up a robust system ？ one which lays down an
over-all plan on how to gradually increase recycling and waste management and
phase out dumps and inadequate collection systems.
On a more practical note, these efforts made
them realized that you have to build a disposal sites with adequate protection
for the environment and public health. They hope that this will create growing
consciousness for people to take measures to help encourage various forms of
recycling.
Environmental Management Act
The
Netherlands has been far ahead of EU policies in waste management and have more
or less influenced the European policies that have been formulated in recent
years. Although the Netherlands follow its own set of laws, it also needs to
conform to the the European Waste Framework Directive which somehow possess legal
uncertainty. It is quite ambiguous for the concepts of waste, by-product, and
end-of-waste status. Countries led by The Netherlands seeks to clarify this
framework in order to promote reuse and recycling. This will also ensure the
amount of dangerous substances in the cycle will be reduced. For example, the
production of asbestos fibers is harmless which means that cleaned waste can be
reused as building material.
The
waste management policy Environmental Act which oversees an integrated approach
to environmental management in The Netherlands and provides the legal framework
by defining the roles of national, provincial, and municipal governments. The
law even covers matters such as waste collection, disposal of hazardous waste,
air quality, noise nuisance, and environmental permits for industrial and
commercial activity. In fact, it has regulated maleficent or recyclable
product, raw materials and materials. The Environmental Management Act
stipulates that the Ministry for Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment
must draw up a Waste Management Plan every six years (ETC/SCP, 2009).
The
basic principles of the hierarchy follow the lines of avoidance of waste as
much as possible, recovery of the valuable raw materials from waste, generation
of energy by incinerating the residual waste and only then landfilling what is
left over, but in an environmentally sound way (NL, 2008).
In
1997 there was a decision to centralise responsibility for waste management,
passing the responsibility from the provincial level to the central government.
This change came into force with the amendment to the Environmental Management
Act in 2002.
The
first National Waste Management Plan 2002-2012 (LAP, 2003) came into force at
the beginning of 2003 and was reviewed in 2009, resulting in the second
National Waste Management Plan (LAP, 2009). The plan is for the period 2009 to
2015, with a view to 2021.The overall objectives of the second National Waste
Management Plan are as follows (Ibid):
. ？？？To
limit growth in waste generation (decoupling from the economic growth); ？
. ？？？To
reduce the environmental impact of waste (optimising recovery and re-use); ？
. ？？？To
minimize the environmental impacts from product chains (raw material
extraction, production, use and waste management including reuse). ？The
government of the Netherlands has utilised a mix of measures in order to
enhance MSW management in the direction of material and organic recovery.
Several financial instruments have been used such as the tax on landfilling,
producer responsibility for a number of products and rate differentiation
(‘Pay-as-you-throw-scheme’) in the collection of household waste (ETC/SCP,
2009).
Obligations
at the provincial level mostly concern the licensing and monitoring of waste
treatment facilities (including incineration and landfilling), together with
the regulation of waste prevention in individual licenses. The provinces are also
responsible (financially, administratively and organizationally) for the
environmental rehabilitation of closed landfills sites (ETC/SCP, 2009).
In
terms of innovation, the country is planning to explore other approaches to
secondary raw materials bringing in new companies to enter into the dialogue
and collaboration with government agencies. This will enable cross-border
transport of recycled products and materials.
Innovation for the future
The
Dutch government has committed to allow clean waste wood (“B-wood”) to be used
as fuel in some SDE+ categories (SDE = Stimulating Sustainable Energy
Production). If this pushes through, the amount of fresh food and clean waste
wood (“A-wood”) to be used for energy will then become available for
alternative uses) (Ministry of the Environment 2016: 23). One of the
prerequisites for is that business-as-usual environmental requirements are met
and that the efforts will not hamper the achievement of the targets for
renewable energy and wood recycling.
Despite
these efforts on reducing waste, a large amount of unrecyclable waste
still find their way unsorted into the waste incineration plants. This has
prompted the Dutch government to investigate how valuable waste flows can be
profitably and more efficiently reclaimed from household waste from abroad and
commercial waste that is still being incinerated in the Netherlands (Ibid: 26).
On a
related note, the Ministry of Environment also wants to increase the use of
recycled or biobased material. The Dutch government is keen on taking steps
within the framework of the jointly developed transition agenda, one which
incorporates collaboration with private sector and other likeminded partners. A
Dutch company ReBlend, for example, aims to bring textiles back into the
economy. This has been supported by the Dutch government. Textile production
has a large adverse impact on the environment. Many clothes are thrown away,
usually before they are worn out. In collaboration with designers, producers, and
labels, the Dutch company ReBlend has developed thread made from 100% recycled
textile. By using this to make clothing and furniture fabric, they hope to
break the vicious textile cycle. ReBlend processes the discarded textile in a
clever process that does not require water or additional chemicals.
In
some cases, the Dutch government has also explored the possibility of
developing new sets of instruments to phase out certain products or components
that have strong ramifications on the environment especially in cases where
there are good alternatives available. Ideas like utilizing superfluous or
non-recyclable multilayer packaging such as crisps and soup packets have
resurfaced. To show commitment in doing this but at the same time not
sacrificing the practical use of a product, dialogues with producers and
retailers to reduce the use of non-sustainable products are continuous.
In
conclusion, while the Netherlands have been advanced in its regulation of waste
through recyclable materials, raw materials and materials, it is still gearing
up for a circular economy by 2050. While this goal seems to be situated on a
much longer term scenario, the Netherlands has been continuously evolving both
in policies and in practices which seeks to include stakeholders like private
sector, research institutions, and the public.
References:
ETC/SCP, 2009, ‘Country Fact Sheets on waste policies’ http://scp.eionet.europa.eu/facts/factsheets_waste/2009_edition/factsheet?country=NL.
Eurostat, 2012: ‘Waste database municipal waste‘ http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/waste/data/database
Eurostat regional data, 2012: ‘Generation and treatment of
municipal waste (1 000 t) by NUTS 2 regions’, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database.
LAP, 2003, ‘Landelijk afvalbeheerplan 2002-2012’ http://www.lap2.nl/downloads.asp?c=./sn_documents/downloads/99
LAP-archief/03 LAP1_OrigineleVersie(2003)
LAP, 2009, ‘Landelijk afvalbeheerplan 2009-2021’. http://www.lap2.nl/default.asp.
Ministry of Environment and Infrastructure (2016). A
Circular Economy of the Netherlands by 2050: Government-wide Programme for a
Circular Economy.
Netherlands, 2004, ‘Environmental Management Act’ http://english.verkeerenwaterstaat.nl/english/Images/1d297_tcm249-302590.pdf.
Ready for the Resource Revolution (2015). The Netherlands: the
circular economy’s European driving force. Link:
http://www.ready-for-the-resource-revolution.com/en/the-netherlands-the-circular-economys-european-driving-force/
Waste Management World (2010). Dutch Success. Link: https://waste-management-world.com/a/dutch-successes
* Introduced here is an article written by one of KEI's environment correspondents. KEI invites students studying abroad and researchers working for foreign research institutes to send articles on various global environmental issues.
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