Waste management

As waste management is the totality of all the activities and tasks that are related to the avoidance, reduction, recycling and disposal of waste, respectively. At the same time the waste industry is an industry.

Scope

It includes the planning, execution and control of these activities and tasks. This refers to both wastes from industry, the industrial and service sectors as well as waste from households and public areas ( streets, parks, etc.). Refuse collection action can be public, private or organized in mixed forms.

Waste management is also regarded as an applied science. Traditionally, this field is integrated end of the 19th century and the then still close access to the city planning, sewage disposal and treatment in civil engineering due to the increasing need for the systematic disposal of household waste in the large cities.

Areas

Waste management as an activity, task, and science deals with:

  • The legal foundations of the waste, eg in the Recycling and Waste Management Act and related Regulations ( definitions of waste, discard, disposal, recycling bids, redemption obligations, municipal statute law, charges right approval process for waste treatment facilities, etc.)
  • The quantities of waste, the waste types, waste composition and waste origin ( research methods, toxicological evaluation )
  • Strategic waste management planning (local, regional, national), waste management plans and programs
  • The potential for waste prevention, eg through waste consultancy
  • The separate collection of recyclable and hazardous components of mixed waste accumulating
  • Waste Collection and transport of waste ( container systems, vehicles, transfer stations )
  • The treatment of waste with the aim of recycling ( recycling) and disposal (mechanical, chemical, biological, thermal, eg disassembly, shredding, sorting, separation, stabilization / inerting, composting / fermentation, combustion / pyrolysis)
  • The dumping of waste in landfill sites ( site selection, planning, installation waste, landfill gas, landfill leachate, etc.)
Waste minimisation Waste legislation Integrated Authority File
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