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Núm. 9- desember 2001 |
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Summary
Editorial Seizures
at the Dump
"Recycle or Die": this was the headline for the editorial in the first issue of this magazine, published in the third quarter of 1991 -soon we'll be celebrating our tenth anniversary. The first issue of Medi Ambient. Tecnologia i cultura was called "Recycling: An Ecological Strategy for Economic Systems". At that time, the Government of Catalonia had decided only a few months before to create a Department of the Environment. The choice of a subject such as recycling indicates the importance given to waste management. Ten years ago, it was a priority: it still is today. Of course, progress has been made in the past decade in regard to legislation laws in Catalonia are among the most advanced in the European Union- and in cleaning up facilities. However, there is still a great deal to be done in regard to public awareness no one wants dumps near his or her own house- and in encouraging bold recycling policies and standing up to the mountains and mountains of waste we generate. Surely the root of the problem lies in the lifestyles and consumerism that, in addition to consuming huge amounts of energy, are characterised by a culture of disposable items. Surrounded by wrappers, we make full use of almost nothing. This issue of the magazine asks a question regarding a current issue: What should we do with solid urban waste? Burn it or reduce it? Should we opt to burn Ðincinerate- what we throw into the trash, or should we recover waste and turn it into a resource? Of course, nothing is just black or white; there are shades of grey and, therefore, possibilities for scenarios that combine both options. What we do know for certain is that dumps are overflowing, and something must be done about it. We feel that the contributors in this issue all of whom are recognised experts- offer, in addition to scientific data, interesting questions for debate and innovative ideas. Enric Tello,
a professor at the University of Barcelona and member of Acci Ecologista,
argues that the price of things is the most effective weapon for encouraging
waste reduction. According to Tello, progress towards a more sustainable
society requires a revolution of efficiency: learning to live better by
consuming fewer materials, generating less waste and recovering as much
as possible in order to turn it into a resource.
Llu's Otero,
operations director of the company Hera Holding, offers very interesting
data on the new generation of dumps. Otero analyses whether or not the
latest generation of controlled landfills is the best option, from an environment
and economic standpoint, for managing the garbage and final waste from
municipal waste.
Josep Puig, long-time ecological activist and ex-councillor of Barcelona City Council, describes the possibilities of small-scale composting, even in iner city areas. Joan Subirats,
Professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona,
takes on a key aspect: public participation. He analyses how to influence
the public in order to achieve certain changes in consumption habits.
Almost ten years after the Department of the Environment was created, this magazine once again discusses municipal solid waste. At that time, the editorial was called Recycle or DieÓ; this time we have used the title Seizures at the Dump because we may not die, but all the dumps we have everywhere could give us seizures. Lluis Reales
"Eliminating" waste or managing materials Enric Tello
The author
argues that cost is the most effective weapon to encourage waste reduction.
The condition of waste, like that of resource, is an economic fact. From
the point of view of ecology, ecosystems follow the general rule of reusing
almost everything. For the author, the advance towards a more sustainable
society requires an efficiency revolutionÓ: learning to live better
whilst consuming less, generating less waste and recovering all we can
of it to turn it into a resource.
Reduction is at the top of the hierarchy in waste management everywhere. It should at least be given priority in theory over the reuse of objects, the recycling of materials and refuse treatment. Nevertheless, the amount of waste per inhabitant keeps increasing almost everywhere. To reduce waste means that government authorities need to invest more than merely symbolic resources in order to direct people habits towards forms of production and consumption that are environmentally more responsible. This means firmly believing in environmental education. The first mistake that is often made, however, is confusing education with preaching and overlooking the communicative efficiency of the price of things that appear on the market. The language of prices is both crude and functional in that expensive things are handled with care while cheap things are soon thrown away. If environmental objectives are missing when companies make decisions to invest in certain types of technologies and not in others, in certain types of product and not in others, or in ways to market and package products and not others, then as consumers we have no alternative when we go to the shop. Without any real alternatives to choose from, people will find it difficult to express their environmental wishes through the meagre purchasing power that they have, so we might as well all preach reductions in waste as long as the dissonant language of the market prevails. Environmental education to reduce waste needs to be thought out, above all, in hard core economic terms. Waste, resources and values The Garraf landfill
site, seen from the upper part of Vall de Joan, looks like a large hanging
valley full of waste in a setting where there is hardly any human presence
at all. Just a few enormous trucks and tractors constantly move around,
like small beetles from such a distance, emptying out and scattering refuse.
If this was a landfill site anywhere in the Third World, instead of the
Garraf Massif, there would be an ant-hill of people, most of them young
children or elderly people, scratching around on the slopes of steaming
waste, looking for something they could make use of. Waste that has been
thrown away because it no longer has any value thus becomes a valuable
resource that sustains the precarious subsistence of other human beings.
The difference between the Garraf landfill and any such site in the Third
World obviously has to do with the value in each place of the objects,
materials and the time that people spend working.
This is the reason why the same things are seen totally differently according to whether they are viewed from the ecological point of view or from the conventional economic point of view that limits its scope to the part that has a market price. The ecological point of view also thinks of exchange but of the kind of metabolic exchange between species and different areas that networks of life construct in ecosystems where materials are kept in permanent circulation by the sunÕs energy, converting the waste from one species into resources for another. The result of this ability to organise itself means that the biosphere does not produce any waste, or hardly any. Fossil fuels are merely an important exception that confirms the general rule in ecosystems that "everything gets used". The extraordinary
material efficiency of geobiochemical cycles in the biosphere is a result
of its ability to make use of the dissipation of solar energy to develop
organised information. Just like a thermodynamic savings book, the energy
that changes and gets degraded in one place can be recovered as information
in another.1 Inversely, the accumulation of waste in any metabolic system
is a patent sign of the inefficient processing of materials. As the American
ecologist Eugene Odum said, waste is misplaced resources.2 Except for the
special case of substances that are toxic for living systems, pollution
produced by waste is the result of its location and accumulation in an
inappropriate place.
As long as the
human technosphere remained at a sufficiently small scale within the overall
biosphere, human societies could trust in Mother Nature, just like any
mother, to keep the house clean by absorbing and recycling all of the waste.
Things have changed however from the situation where the world was relatively
empty of the presence of human beings to one where it is increasingly full.4
Society has grown up and man is running up against the environmental limits
of Mother Nature everywhere. It is time to stop growing and to start evolving.
Unlike mere growth, understood as being the increase in scale of economic activity in a finite biosphere, the improvement of material and energy efficiency achieved through the increase of information incorporated into the technological and social complex becomes a fundamental indicator of the degree of development in human societies. In order to make peace with Nature and to progress in the direction of more sustainable societies, an efficiency revolutionÓ is needed where people learn to live better by using fewer materials, producing less waste, and recovering the maximum amount of waste possible and converting it once again into resources. The myth of spontaneous dematerialisation If resources and waste form part of the same metabolic process, and if the economic metabolism identifies one and the other through the same process of evaluation or depreciation of value, then solutions to the problem of waste must be dependent on changes in the way that resources are used. Policies to reduce, reuse and recycle waste need to go hand in hand with the advancement towards systems that are cleaner and more efficient in using resources, and viceversa. The development of recovery circuits depends on the costs of recycled materials, the price of virgin raw materials, the cost of disposing of refuse material that has been processed in different ways, and the efficiency of the techniques and systems used in each stage of the process. There is a seemingly reassuring myth according to which one does not need to worry about the environment because, in the long term, economic growth in itself will grow out of the ecological problems that it creates. Yet if we take heed of this economic picture, the solution is none other than more growth. In an essay entitled Eulogy for growth, Andreu Mas-Colell states that the combination of unclean technologies and economic expansion leads to the deterioration of the natural environment in the initial stage of growth. This can be called the effect of scale: the larger the scale, the more pollution. This however is just the initial effect because the increase in income changes preferences and sets substitution processes in motion. The attitude that members of society have towards nature is more positive as growth continues and the economic well-being of the members of society increases. (...) To use the jargon of economics, it could be said that nature is a luxury good (...). To sum up, as income per capita increases, the quality of the environment deteriorates although this process is accompanied by a progressively larger investment in cleaner technologies and restoration activities. (...) Sooner or later, then, a critical level of income is reached beyond which economic growth and improvements to the environment go hand in hand. Known technically as the environmental Kuznets curve argument, where there is an initial stage of larger environmental impacts and another one of diminishing impacts, thus turns out to be a sedative. If, instead of a tranquilliser, one wants to understand the real trends, however, the question needs to be asked whether possible improvements in environmental efficiency appear spontaneously as a result of the growth in income and if this theory can be corroborated in real life or not. The argument combines three suppositions that are behind this dissociation beyond a certain threshold level, economic growth, resource use and waste production. The first supposition is the existence of a learning cycle in the perfection and early stages of new technologies. The initial designs are often not very expert although experience over time enables efficiency to be increased (learning by doing).7 The second supposition is an effect induced by the differential improvement of productivity between sectors that, by modifying relative prices, generates a structural change in the composition of the basket of goods produced and consumed. There is a tendency to assume that the structural change will shift the economy towards a lower intensity of resource use and waste production per unit produced. This is also connected with the third supposition, i.e the change in consumer preferences invoked by Mas-Colell. It is believed that higher income and a saturation point in the consumption of products with a higher material intensity reached leads to a changeover in consumer demand to quality services. The environment itself would become a high income-elasticity good. These suppositions are apparently highly probable and appear to be reasonable. However, reality has so far not endorsed the idea that all of this results in any kind of spontaneous dematerialisation on an aggregate scale.8 The environmental Kuznets curves come out very well in the shape of a hillock when per capita income is collated with the evolution of certain parameters of pollution originating from technologies that are becoming obsolete. Once over the peak of the curve, the higher the level of income, the fewer sulphur oxides there are in the metropolis in the developed world, for example. In the same cities, however, there is a shift in the pollution parameters. The substitution of gas for coal combustion improves sulphur oxide emissions into the air although the increase in traffic increases the nitrogen oxides and the formation of ozone in the troposphere in the meantime. A similar thing occurs with the substitution of certain materials for others. The reassuring argument confuses the part with the whole. It is sometimes possible to recreate the line of argument at the aggregate scale with the notion of material or residual intensity per product unit. By dividing the energy or materials used in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at fixed prices, it can be seen that in certain countries, and from a certain point in time onwards, the number of tons of all different types of product in each GDP unit begins to decrease.9 This translates into certain improvements in efficiency although this is regrettably only a relative improvement. The GDP meanwhile continues to grow and the scale effect that Mas-Colell talks about continues to operate at a faster rate than the improvement in material or energy intensity. Cars use less petrol than they did twenty years ago but there are a lot more cars on the roads today. Instead of spontaneously resolving the problem, growth eats away the small improvements in energy, material and waste efficiency that are achieved. It is only through a profound change in the technological and social complex that the strategies of the so-called factor 4 (for energy and some materials) or factor 10Ó (for most minerals and metals) can become possible and that the benefit can really be obtained from dematerialisation options that are truly within reach.10 Mas-Colell also talks about restorative policies because the environment is a public asset par excellence. Its deterioration is detrimental to everybody although the rich can evade its effects more easily.11 When there is an improvement in the environment, everybody benefits without anybody preventing others from enjoying it. Accordingly, the demands for environmental improvement get channelled towards the public sector and this in practice means higher public expenditure. This does not mean that an increase in public expenditure on the environment is such a good indicator of environmental improvement. The relationship can also be interpreted the other way round in that economic growth causes increasing environmental problems that make expenditure necessary for it to be restored. This is particularly relevant when environmental expenditure is channelled through installations that are merely end-of-pipe palliatives that increase the cost without fundamentally resolving the problem.12 Ecological economics considers that this defensive expenditure should be deducted from GDP, instead of being added to it, for this indicator to be used to indirectly estimate the level of well-being. For Herman Daly and Manfred Max-Neef, the increase in the production of unnecessary waste, together with the palliative expenditure that this causes, are two profound examples of the growing gap between real well being and GDP increase. In other words, it is the beginning of a kind of anti-economic growth that undermines real well being instead of benefiting it.13 The development of the consumer society has turned the United States into the umber one materials consumer, with a figure of 84 tons per inhabitant in 1991 that ranges from minerals and fossil fuels extracted from the ground to soil lost through erosion (without counting the water or air). This figure reached over a hundred tons per inhabitant in the mid-1970s. Material requirements have gone down slightly since then due, apparently, to a certain saturation threshold level having been reached. Likewise, the parallel development of European countries like Germany and Holland has led to an opposite trend, with total resource use increasing from around sixty tons to the same level as in North America. Even the efficient Japanese economy, where each inhabitant consumed a total of 46 tons of material resources in 1991, has experienced an increasing trend It would thus appear that spontaneous evolution only leads to a convergence towards unsustainability. We cannot sit back and wait for the Kuznets curve to reach maximum figures like those of the United States and then follow the reassuring decrease forecasted in the long term by Andreu Mas-Colell. From their headquarters in Washington, researchers at the Worldwatch Institute have been involved in estimating what the increase in the use of materials would be for the whole world to achieve the same current per capita level as the United States. Non-fuel mineral extraction would need to multiply sevenfold, metal processing would double, the felling of trees for timber would increase five times, and the production of synthetic products from fossil fuels would increase ten times in quantity.14 As Keynes would so sarcastically say, in the long run, everyone dies. The patterns
are more or less similar for the production of urban waste. Absolute values
for urban waste began to decrease in the United States in 1994-95 for the
first time during an economic boom. It remains to be seen whether this
change in trend will really become consolidated over the coming years.
In any case, this was from levels of two kilos daily or 730 kilos of municipal
waste per inhabitant per year, which were totally unsustainable. 400 are
collected in Japan, 580 in Holland, and 320 in Germany (Table 1). These
comparisons show that the increase in business activity measured by GDP
is only one of the factors determining the amount of waste produced within
a specific territory. By comparing waste generation with the GDP per inhabitant
in a wider sample of countries, two highly interesting things become noticeable.
Firstly, the relationship is weaker than one would think and, secondly,
for waste generation, inequality in the distribution of income is as or
more significant than the amount
Technology and culture As the subtitle of this review suggests, technology and culture are closely related. Waste reduction and the dematerialisation of the economy are real possibilities that are within reach. However, we cannot trust in economic growth or the goodness of the free market to do the job. It is a democratic task and it is something that actually needs to be done. It consists of transcending the culture of the material inefficiency of unclean technologies in production, squandering in consumption, and the badly termed elimination in waste management by actively orientating technological change and social habits towards ecological efficiency, responsible consumption, waste recovery and the minimisation of final waste (figure 3, page 11). As the ecologist Eugene P. Odum says, this means a shift of one hundred and eighty degrees with waste being managed at the outlet point and resources being efficiently administered at the point of entry into the economic and social systemThe forms of production, the patterns of consumption, and the habit of separating refuse have to change all together and in a coherent way throughout the whole chain. Making the step from the elimination culture to the recovery culture requires the development of a new set of tools in three different areas: 1) technologies and management systems aimed at recovery; 2) cultural guidelines that are coherent with reduction, reuse and recycling; and 3) economic instruments that provide incentive. Mass dumping and incineration have been the ultimate management technologies that are characteristic of the stage of management aimed at eliminating waste. The objective was to get the rubbish out of sight or to get rid of it. Experience has shown that these systems create addiction to refuse, they act as a disincentive to recovery and they are incapable of counteracting the unsustainable trend towards an increase in the production of waste. If landfill sites continue to be willing to receive unprocessed, mixed materials at a low cost, if the streets are full of non-selective collection containers and the lorry comes by each night to empty them, why make an effort to reduce and separate rubbish? If the space for landfills becomes scarce and incineration plants are built that need to be amortised by selling electricity and that charge for accepting waste that burns well, it is not worth anybody while reducing and separating rubbish either. When attempts have been made to combine incineration and the dumping of everything together with a certain amount of recycling, the results have been disappointing. In 1960, 60% of all waste in the United States was being incinerated either at open-air landfill sites or in incinerator plants.17 This practice set off the environmental alarm due to the emission of toxic by-products, especially new persistent organic pollutants (POPs) originating from the incomplete combustion of organic materials in the presence of chlorine (dioxines and furans).18 Increasingly conclusive evidence has been made available from scientific analyses of the environmental time bomb that exists and is attributed to the dissemination into the environment of these lipo-soluble and bioaccumulable substances which have carcinogenic and immunodepressive effects in very small doses and that, in even smaller concentrations, act as false hormones that distort the functioning of the reproductive and endocrinal system.19 A recent report from the Worldwatch Institute estimates that the incineration of all types of waste gives rise to 69% of the dioxines and furans that are produced in the whole world and that get dispersed in the atmosphere and end up bioaccumulating in the fatty tissue of organisms like human beings that are at the end of the food chain.20 The flare-up of a social refuse crisis, in the form of protests by people rejecting incineration and landfill sites, on the one hand, and the accumulation of scientific proof on the danger of POPs, on the other, has led to increasingly demanding environmental protection regulations being issued. This in turn has led to a decrease in the percentage of incineration in the United States from 60% in 1960 to 20% in 1997.21 With noteworthy differences according to the social and territorial context, the dominant trends see the same pattern spreading everywhere. The Worldwatch Institute has made an initial estimation of dioxine and furan emissions into the air from the few inventories that are available. Japan is the country with the highest level of pollution caused by these organochlorines and the largest number of incinerator plants in operation (around 3,800, whereas there were only 132 in operation in the whole of the United States in 1997).22 The situation is even more disturbing in Belgium, where there was a serious government crisis in 1999 due to a scandal involving dioxines and PCBs that entered the food chain (Table 3, page 12). Concerning the matter in hand, the most interesting fact is the realisation that street protests and public access to environmental information act as democratic catalysts for technical and cultural change towards a new form of waste management orientated towards reduction and recovery. 10% of the 137 million tons of municipal waste generated in the United States in 1980 was recycled or composted. By 1996, the percentage of recovery had increased to 27% while municipal waste had increased to 210 million tons. Maarten De Kadt is of the opinion that it will be difficult to go much beyond this threshold if the policies of waste management being applied at the end of the chain of consumption are not made congruent with the type of resource management in product manufacturing that seeks to save virgin raw materials and energy through clean production, industrial ecology and the ecological design of new products and services. The true potential of recycling will never be attained as long as the strategy of waste management continues to run into a type of materials management that is headed in the opposite direction. The wheels of production will resist the transformation all the way from waste management to the conservation of resources. A problem of coherency Despite enormous resistance, things in real life are beginning to move in the direction of recovery. Seattle recovers over 40% of its waste, Newark (New Jersey) 53%, and the entire state of Arkansas reached 36% in 1996. The city of New York recovers 17%, although the figure for New York State is 32% and the objective is to reach 50% in the near future. Experimental studies at the Center for the Biology of Natural Sciences (CBNS) have shown that it is not difficult to attain a recovery rate of 84% on a small scale. If this level can be achieved in more general terms, waste incineration would disappear because the remaining materials would be increasingly less combustible.24 Experience shows that active reduction and recovery policies directed from cities, which are the end terminus of the economic course leading from resources to waste, can begin to make headway even when they go against the tide of trends that are still predominant in the production of goods and services. The successive stages that are attained will depend on the degree of congruency or incongruency with the collection and waste processing systems that are used, on the one hand, and, on the other, with the ways that materials are managed in the economic circuits of investment, production, commercialisation and product packaging. All of this is a detailed reminder of what began to occur in Catalonia. With 550 kilos of municipal waste per inhabitant per year, a figure that was much higher than that of countries like Germany, Catalonia found itself totally in the grip of the refuse nightmare. Between 1993 and 1999, the amount of rubbish went up from an average of a kilo and a quarter to almost a kilo and a half. There are regions like Alt and Baix Empord, La Selva, Garraf, Baix Penes, Tarras, Cerdanya, Pallars Sobirˆ and Vall dÕAran, where the consumer habits of both the local resident population and the influx of tourists cause the generation of refuse to shoot up to the same levels as in North America (two kilos per inhabitant per day). Only 11% of the 3.3 million tons of municipal waste produced in the whole of Catalonia is recycled or composted. 68% is directly disposed of all together without any kind of preliminary treatment, and 21% is disposed of in the form of slag and ash from incineration plants.25 The contrast between the situation and trends in different regions of the country corroborate the close connection between technology and the waste culture. There is a significant relationship between the production of refuse and the type of dwelling and consumer habits that still tend to be associated with the increase in purchasing power (Table 4, page 13). Where the incineration of everything dumped together has been imposed, the percentages of recycling and composting are minimal. Paradigmatic cases of regional management revolving around an incineration plant are El Tarragons, El Girons and Maresme and it is here where the levels of recovery are lowest. On the other hand, in places where people protests and/or a more courageous attitude by the local authorities have made room for alternatives, active policies of recovery and reduction are beginning to make headway despite the existence of many obstacles. Protests by
the local community and ecologists brought about the unexpected and last
minute stop to the construction of a large incineration plant in the Zona
Franca in 1997, where it was planned to burn over half of the waste of
the thirty-three municipalities that make up the Barcelona Metropolitan
Agency. Since then, the Metropolitan Waste Management Programme has set
the objective of recovering 60% of all refuse by 2006. Different types
of selective collection attained an overall recovery of 11% in 1999, which
is still a long way from the goal. A look at the situation in more detail,
however, shows that composting and recycling plants are already in operation
and this means that much higher levels of recovery are being achieved in
the deployment of organic and inorganic household material separation (Table
5, page 14)
The possibility of opting for active policies in favour of recovery and reduction is within reach of everybody. The singular experience of door-to-door selective collection deployed in Tiana (Maresme), Tona (Osona) and Riudecanyes (Baix Camp) aroused interest in the media throughout 2000 and lead to a quantum leap to 85% of all household refuse collected being composted or recycled. This result coincides with those of small scale experiments made in the U.S. at the Center for the Biology of Natural Sciences (CBNS), and has already lead to an association between different municipalities in Catalonia that are interested in bringing this into general use. These good practice experiences show that when there is a will to do so, and the means are made available, it is possible to make a spectacular increase in recovery percentages. The results in the first towns to do this are significant for municipalities with both high (Tiana and Sant Just Desvern) and low (Badia del Valls and Ripollet) levels of income, and for both dispersed (Torrelles de Llobregat) and denser and more compact (Molins de Rei, Sant Feliu de Llobregat and Montcada) urban structures. Amongst the fifteen municipalities in the metropolitan area of Barcelona that had recovery percentages of over 15% in 1999, is the municipality that generated the least amount of waste per resident (Badia, with 1.1 kilos/inhab./day), and those that generated the most (Castelldefels, where the wave of beach tourists drives the index up to 2.36, and Torrelles de Llobregat with 1.86 kilos/inhab./day). Economics must always be considered, of course. To start off, however, the task of reducing and recovering waste, innovation capacity and democratic vitality are more important. The key is to establish the involvement of people in general with a message that is comprehensible, motivating and congruent with the collection and treatment systems that are used. Certain technologies, like incineration, act as a vacuum cleaner for waste and create a favourable environment for the unsustainable elimination culture. Others, like composting and methanation of the organic fraction and the recycling of the inorganic part, stimulate the culture of reduction, conscientious selection and the maximum recovery of refuse. Combinations of cold biomechanical systems, like those used in the Ecoparks that are under construction in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, gradually adapt to the increase in the selection of materials at the input by improving the proportion of recovery and refuse at the outlet. Incinerator plants need to be fed with refuse. Economic instruments While the will to do so on its own is enough to start developing the new culture of waste reduction, new economic instruments will need to be applied to bring high recovery percentages into general use for large groups of population. There are two principal ones, the collateral system and ecological taxes. Some kind of collateral, security or deposit on returnable containers and packaging is the most efficient system for stimulating the reduction and reuse of the fraction that most stimulates the increase in the production of unnecessary waste. The Law on Packaging and Packaging Waste (LERE) that was passed in 1997 recognises this, at least rhetorically, in establishing in article six the obligatory nature of a system of deposit, refund and return of containers: "Packagers and
traders of packaged products or, when it is not possible to identify the
aforementioned, those who are responsible for the packaged products when
they are first put on sale on the market, will be obliged to:
Charge their
clients, right down to the end consumer, an individualised amount for each
container that is the object of transaction. This amount is not to be considered
as being the price nor will it be subject therefore to any kind of taxation
The purpose
of integrated management systems will be to periodically collect used containers
and packaging waste at the consumers home or nearby. They are to be formed
in accordance with agreements adopted between the economic agents operating
in the sectors concerned, except for consumers, users and public administration
authorities, and they must be authorised by the competent governing body
in each Autonomous Community where they will be implemented on a territorial
basis, subject to hearing by consumers and users.
The criteria of the new environmental system of taxation recommend that, whenever possible, the liability to pay an eco-tax (or any other economic instrument such as the deposit and return system) must be as far as possible from the end user. Payment on account needs to be transferred to the economic agent who really has a greater response capacity. It is obvious that the concentrated expenditure of companies when they invest carries a lot more weight in producing the problem and in solving it than the disperse and often impotent spending of families at the end of the chain of consumption. Nevertheless, there is always one part of the economic support of the waste collection and treatment system that has to fall, in one way or another, on all taxpayers. It is impossible to impose an Eco-tax on the farmer or fruit seller in the market for each apple skin that gets thrown into the rubbish, or on the furniture manufacturers for our grandparents old furniture that we are taking to the tip. Just as two
cultures clash in terms of the systems of treatment, the elimination and
reduction of waste also confront each other in the system of taxation.
The first looks for the most painless and invisible way possible to make
taxpayers pay. Its logic does not go beyond the mere proportional off-loading
of costs; it costs so much to manage this waste so each one has to pay
so much. The second one seeks to convert the taxes on refuse into an instrument
of environmental education that acts as an incentive for people to adopt
more responsible forms of behaviour. An example of the culture that hides
waste under the carpet so far as tax is concerned is the local authorities
that camouflage their taxes in other figures like the property tax or simply
by making them disappear by paying the expense from general funds.
The application of the tools of environmental economics in the context of a new waste reduction, selection and recovery culture that is congruent with the systems of product packaging, sales and manufacturing and with the biomechanical technologies of compost and refuse treatment, can give a decisive turn to the nightmare situation that municipal waste generation finds itself in in Catalonia. The daily rubbish bag in many towns and villages in Catalonia is already reaching close to the two-kilo average recorded in the United States, and it sometimes exceeds this figure. The municipalities with the highest level of waste generation are often formed of the more dispersed type of urban structure and with the significant presence of tourist, commercial or leisure activities (Table 6, page 17): While it is true that the municipalities that generate most waste have a population with a higher level of income, and towns with a lower available income often generate less, the correlation is not so high because there are other cultural, social and political factors at play (diagram 3, page 18). This is the active gap that the environmental tax regulations need to provide economic incentive for. Tallied and debated There is no definitive relationship between business activity, the distribution of wealth and waste generation. There is only a trend and not a very marked one at that because it can be actively contravened with the development of innovative policies, technologies and culture for managing and reconverting waste into resources. Economics must always be considered, of course, but the same is true for politics and society as well. Environmental improvement is a result of human development and not of economic growth as such. The real increase in people ability to choose is, and has always been, a democratic conquest and never a mere by-product of the increase in income or market turnover.27 References 1 R. Margalef,
Teor'a de los sistemas ecol-gicos, Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona,
Barcelona, 19932, p. 94.
Are
controlled landfills necessary?
The author
analyses whether the latest generation controlled landfills are the best
option, environmentally and economically speaking, for the management of
final waste from municipal waste. The author covers eight key aspects:
the reintegration of the environmental rucksack in the earth; the impact
of infrastructures; the environment of controlled landfills; the destination
of final waste; the technologies available; managing demand; costs, and,
finally, its evolution. At the end of the text is a glossary of terms,
which includes some which are new or little known.
This article expresses criteria and conclusions that are strictly personal and the result of a professional career that spans a period of over ten years involved in discovering and providing what was most needed in terms of planning and the development of environmental activities in Catalonia. This includes waste minimisation and industrial emissions; the integrated and fractionated management of municipal waste; the recovery of polluted soils and improvement of the environment; and the disposal of final waste. Experience with a Catalan resource management company that provides integrated environmental services for industry and government authorities, and which has one of the most advanced controlled waste facilities in Europe, has served to complete these views. The objective is to get the key ideas down on paper in a clear way so that the reader can compare and develop a balanced opinion on the subject, especially in the context of the other articles in this journal. My own personal views changed radically when I became involved in the multiple dimensions of controlled landfills and found myself having to deal with these concepts. The article analyses the raison dՐtre of controlled landfills, which are a form of environmental infrastructure designed and managed according to strict engineering criteria (a recent development that is in fact conceptually opposed to the traditional uncontrolled dump) and emphasises their fundamental features that are imperative at the present time Ñwhich we can and must secure so that they may be considered the best available technology that is environmentally correct and economically viable for numerous types of waste Preliminary
treatment and secondary valorization are presented in the analysis, along
with the fractionated management of waste, which are increasingly associated
with this form of end disposal that, along with prevention and recycling,
makes up the Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS)1, a concept that
is internationally consolidated and that should not be confused with Integrated
Management Systems (IMS), an interchangeable term introduced by the Law
on Packaging and Packaging Waste. It is foreseen that the fractionated
management of waste, together with secondary valorization and end disposal
will continue to form a basic component of IMS throughout the first two
decades of the 21st century as a sustainable closed-cycle economy is implemented
that is extensively dematerialised, renewed and environmentalised.
Likewise, the
article seeks to provide criteria for comparison and points of view for
the existing dialectic (which is often more biased than scientific and
logical) on the two main options for disposing of final waste that exist
at the present time. Controlled landfills (isolated reintegration, which
is innocuous to the lithosphere) as well as incineration (thermal oxidation
into the atmosphere) are forced to coexist, with each one specialising
in the ambit that is most fitting, with both of them producing strictly
controlled emissions. Optimised systems of fractionated management of waste
are also being developed although an assessment of these lies beyond the
scope of this article.
Lastly, the cost matrix system of a complete, law-abiding controlled landfill is given by way of illustration and as a preliminary arrangement. The result reveals the likely shortfall in existing standard rates available for municipal waste3 to cover these costs, when this circumstance is expressly prohibited by the Directive. Furthermore, differences in the level of administrative control over the installations in different areas of a region (in the case of the Autonomous Communities) can lead to situations that are controversial in environmental and economical terms, with obsolete vehicles being transported to places where more is paid for this type of consumer waste because of inadequate management (in the fragmentation and the disposal of fluff), the use of low quality compost in agriculture, the environmental dumping of industrial products and environmental services, etc. In the case of municipal waste, the cost of disposal in controlled landfills is at present marginal in relation to the cost of collection. Moreover, the way that this is charged (by overall weight collected instead of by volume4, and even worse when there is a set annual cost irrespective of the quantity) even discourages reduction, selective collection and recovery. Inventive solutions have been found in some countries, such as specific slogans to motivate the return of consumer waste to shops, advance taxation for the managing of consumer waste, and the payment of waste volume through the compulsory use of official taxed bags. Key questions An attempt is made to answer or, at least, embark on the following issues as they concern controlled landfills:
An analysis is made of whether and when the latest generation of controlled landfills are the best available technology in terms of being environmentally correct and economically viable for managing municipal waste/final waste, and whether they are socially and economically acceptable and compatible with the general hierarchy of options of an Integrated Management System. All of this is a delicate and controversial issue for the consumer society at the beginning of the 21st century. Municipal waste is the most complex for waste managers, and it comes closer and is more emblematic for the people who produce it just at the time when the European Landfill Directive is being implemented. However, the principle that the Directive implicitly assumes, i.e. the inevitable contribution to the greenhouse effect of a large part of the carbon atoms from waste discharged in controlled landfills, has not been sufficiently demonstrated. By virtue of this hypothesis, which is pending verification or rejection by the new generation of controlled landfills, the Directive enforces the prevention of Òcarbon drain dumpsÓ by forcing their removal from a growing percentage, prior to discharge in controlled landfills by way of preliminary treatments which have not been sufficiently proven to be preferable. The current Directive bans the natural anaerobic reactor without making this conditional on the efficiency of the collection and valorization of the biogas produced whereas paradoxically it is being promoted by the United States environmental authority at demonstration level. The measures imposed in the European Union will have very important economic consequences in the medium term for many member states with highly diverse climatic, geographical and technological characteristics. Furthermore, the Directive could make many existing installations of this type illegal, for two quite opposite reasons:
If the family that produced all of this in just one year had to store it at home, it would occupy around 7 m3, (without being compacted) and waste would fill the entire house after a whole generation, i.e. 25 years. Given that the current cost of renting accommodation is around 6,600 pesetas/m3/year, the space occupied by the domestic waste produced by a family in just one year, over the course of one generation in the home, would cost 1,155,000 pesetas (with the waste compacted down to 1 m3: 165,000 pesetas/ton/25 years), without accounting for the inconvenience and expense involved in managing the liquids and gases that would escape from the Òstorage roomÓ, given the particular characteristics of refuse and obsolete consumer products (dirty containers, fruit and vegetable remains, leftover food). A controlled landfill in Catalonia charges between 3,500 and 5,000 pesetas to take charge of one ton of waste at the present time, whereas in Central Europe the price increases to around 28,000 pesetas per ton. Following this
illustrative calculation of a problem that every generation has had to
face but never so much as now with the high standard of living of the technological
society, the question needs to be asked: What is really the best strategy
to adopt for dealing with waste? The answer, just like the whole ambit
of the environment, is very easy; the three basic techniques of sustainable
development (that come down specifically to numerous practical measures)
need to be applied5:
A matter that does need to be pinned down, however, due to the interrelationship with controlled landfills, is the basic concepts of pre-treatment (fractionated management) and the secondary valorization of waste and final waste. These generally begin with the physical (size range, ballistic and grading) fractionation of the waste en masse, with the waste fractions then being processed separately by secondary valorization or end disposal according to their composition (biodigestion, composting, selection, manufacture of competitive fuel substitutes, controlled landfilling, incineration, etc.). Now is the time to touch on the never-ending story of the pros and cons of controlled landfilling in the process of the end disposal of final waste, always bearing in mind that resource recovery and the avoidance of impacts are possible. And this without taking into account any improvements brought about by possible and desirable pre-processing beforehand. This naturally gets compared with the basic disposal alternative that exists at the present time, without wishing to be controversial or competitive (and equally compatible with the possibilities of the previous priority options), which is incineration or the atmospheric thermal oxidation at medium temperatures of final waste. Given that a whole treatise could be written on this and the fact that numerous life cycle assessments have already been made, this article limits itself to presenting a comparison (made by the author and summarised in the following table) of the main aspects under analysis, and which is coherent with other results that are consulted. This is presented more as food for thought than as a conclusion concerning the acceptability or suitability of any of the options considered for a particular situation. The eight key aspects 1. The concept of controlled landfilling: returning the environmental rucksack to the earth The material
environmental rucksack of the countries in the European Union is around
75,000 kg/inhabitant/year. While it is obvious that this enormous quantity
of materials Òcomes out of the earth and has to go back thereÓ,
it will also clearly do so (or at least it is expected to) in cycles that
are progressively smaller throughout the third millennium, both in relative
and absolute terms.
2. The territorial impact of discharge infrastructure, and how this conditions the types of solution The surface
area that a modern controlled landfill occupies can be considered to be
acceptable if one compares it with previous figures6: 0.25 m2/inhabitant/25
years, where all of the municipal waste generated is taken, without any
integrated or fractionated management. If one compares the territory covered
by Catalonia and its population, which gives a figure of 6,333.3 m2/habitant,
controlled landfills only take up 4 parts per 100,000 of the territorial
space). This use of territorial space can even be minimised and reused
for specific and attractive purposes, given a certain amount of imagination
(there are very valuable projects on this that go way beyond mere reforestation).
3. Improvements in the controlled landfilling environment. In addition
to the fact that there is no extensive use of materialised labour in construction,
and that many materials can be recycled or renewed, nor is there any rubble
or waste produced during or at the end of its useful life. Access tracks
and unloading platforms are often temporary and recyclable. Structural
designs of the continuous medium that constitutes the controlled landfill
are optimised through calculations using finite 3-D elements.
As has been suggested beforehand, the areas used are often recovered from previous forms of use having a considerable environmental rucksack, such as quarries, or they are clearly improvable as controlled landfills. It must be possible to cover them and not only must this be done in such a way as to prevent emissions and the entry of air, water and sunlight, together with the maximum recovery of water (leachates and rain water) and energy, but they must also be designed for imaginative and attractive forms of subsequent use, like gardens, sports facilities, reserves of botanical biodiversity or botanical theme parks. Installations of this type exist in Catalonia with pitch & put practice courts, and integrated projects for improving the environment are being introduced. 4. The destination of final waste from reduction, reuse and valorization The trend curves and the laws of thermodynamics come to the obvious conclusion that it will not be possible to carry the strategies of dematerialisation, renewal and environmentalisation that constitute sustainable development through to their ultimate conclusion during the first two decades of the 21st century. In the specific terms of waste, these strategies are the reduction in waste generation, reuse-recycling and the efficient valorization of the resources contained in waste, in addition to the minimisation of the impacts of disposal. The mechanisms of demand management have a great potential, although there is a large amount of inertia that prevents them from being introduced. 5. Technological treatment improvements available for certain waste flows and fractions The table below
shows the BAT for certain municipal waste fractions (see table, page 26).
This mechanism
is so important in guiding the transition to sustainability that it was
the subject of a paper on ways to stimulate it at the IV Environmental
Forum Symposium held at the ECOMED-Pollutec trade fair in Barcelona in
February 2001. The paper is available on the Fundaci- F˜rum Ambiental web
page.
In fact, without the contribution of the experts in resource management, rapid progress cannot be made in savings and environmental loads that are frequently caused by resource use. It is also an economic law and common sense that, for a waste manager or a water or electrical energy supplier to be motivated in this sense, they need to participate in the economic and environmental savings that accrue to their clients in the way of new types of Ôwin-winÕ relationships that are not formulated in an easy way. 7. The cost of controlled landfilling The table below
shows the vector type of resource use attributed to municipal waste accepted
at a controlled landfill (the obvious fact that one kg weighs one kg has
not been included). The resource use matrix consists of the group of waste
vectors admitted (see table, page 26).
The evolution of costs As such, it
is not possible to talk of an evolution in costs in the matter of controlled
landfills, simply because the concept is a new one. From the opposite type
of practice, completely lacking in services, controlled landfills got their
image when they are not like that at all. This permitted a charge of 100
to 500 Ptas/t, when it was not simply a question of dumping waste in a
gully, to cover the cost of transport. The environmentalisation achieved
through the use of controlled landfills has increased considerably, to
which we must add the options of renewability used: water and biogas. The
most accepted figure for the cost in Spain at the present time, according
to studies made by the European Union on the occasion of the implementation
of the Directive and various different private operations, is between 6-7
pesetas/kg, and this is still not applied to any installation due to the
lack of municipal financing.
Comparatively speaking, the cost of incineration in Spain has gone up from 0.5 pesetas/kg to around 10 pesetas/kg (for new plants, once the sale of energy has been deducted, with the correct management of flying ash). Glossary Integrated Solid
Waste Management: where the existing options for management are used to
an optimum degree and in an optimum way; all the agents that are involved
participate according to their obligations; each fraction is treated as
required; the necessary instruments are implemented so that all stages
are viable and, as a whole, everything is ecologically efficient, i.e.
the service of managing consumer waste materials is done with a minimal
environmental impact (emissions and use of resources) and at a minimal
expense.
Controlled landfill:
an isolated lithospheric storage space conditioned in an optimum way for
a large part of the environmental rucksack resulting from human activities,
especially the inorganic fractions with simple yet robust techniques that
attempt to imitate the laws of Nature (with no explicit contra-indication
for the organic fractions, in spite of the fact that they imply a higher
magnitude of technical complication).
Municipal waste
incinerator: a highly sophisticated chemical plant for oxidising or evaporating
the organic and other components that can be oxidised from the part that
can actually be incinerated at medium temperatures and with an excess of
oxygen. This results in a large reduction in weight (75%, which in part
is dangerous due to flying ash) and solid and liquid volume (90%), and
gas production (especially, and desirably, of CO2) within very strict concentration
limits of pollutant emissions into the air. Extensive possibilities of
energy recovery.
Valorization:
the use of resources with a rate of efficiency and at a cost that is competitive
with the existing alternatives on the market.
Bibliography Programa de
Gesti- de Residus Municipals de Catalunya. Junta de Residus
References 1 Optimum use
made of each management option, with particular attention to each fraction,
with the intervention of all of the agents involved, and the implementation
of the necessary instruments for viability at every stage.
Waste
incineration:an alternative?
This goes
over the pros and cons of incineration, even dioxin emissions. The authors
theory is that following the adoption of the European Directive in the
year 2000, it can be said that waste incineration is an activity subjected
to the strictest controls and the most stringent limits of emissions into
the atmosphere. Therefore, in his opinion, incineration would be one of
the fundamental alternatives within an integrated waste management system.
The two oldest
systems man has used to get rid of refuse are uncontrolled dumping and
burning. It was not until the end of the 19th Century that the early elements
of what is known today as waste management were established.
It is also necessary to point out that, over the past few years, there has been a world-wide increase in the amount of refuse produced and in the variation of its composition. Some causes of this increase in amounts and of the variation of its content are: Amount:
Prevention in
production as well as in products.
This was ratified and recently complemented by the COUNCIL RESOLUTION on 24.2.1997, regarding a Community Strategy for Waste Management (1997):
Incinerating Municipal Waste The term incineration
can be defined in different ways, but it basically refers to the combustion
of organic substances by means of a chemical oxidation process. When oxidation
is carried out quickly, the temperature of the material increases quickly
due to its inability to transfer the heat generated toward the outside
as quickly as it is produced. As a result, visible radiation is issued,
which we refer to as the flame.
The Legislative Framework In Spain, the
first legal provisions limiting emissions date from 1975 (Decree 833/75),
with limits only on the emission of particles in suspension and which are
not very demanding.
Finally last
year, the EU adopted Directive 2000/76/EC, regarding waste incineration,
which updates the previous ones and does not make distinctions between
incineration of municipal and hazardous waste. It must be incorporated
into domestic law by member states before 28 December 2002. It is scheduled
to come into effect for new facilities in December of 2002 and for existing
facilities in December of 2005. This directive involved the most demanding
limits on emission into the atmosphere that currently exist on a world-wide
level for any type of facility. It also involves adopting limits on the
emission of nitrogen oxides and substantial reductions in the emission
of heavy metals. Once again, this involves extending to the entire EU German
standards on incineration.
In the United States, the first specific legislation dates back to 1970, and involves limits on emission exclusively for particle emission. The second dates to 1990, and is currently in effect, being less demanding than legislation in the EU. In 1994, a draft was published for new legislation that has not yet been adopted. In order to illustrate the progressive effect of these reductions in the values limiting emissions, calculations were made for the dispersion these emissions would have for a refuse incinerator working at a capacity of 1000 t/day, as well as the cleaning capacity of current combustion gas cleaning technologies. Consideration as a pollutant was given to particles in suspension, since this is where most dioxins emitted are associated (see figures, page 34). It is easy to see the progress represented by legislation from 1989, and which, together with legislation from 2000 and current technology that is already being applied, has led us to a situation of almost zero emissions. Incineration Technologies Waste incineration requires having a great deal of attention paid to mastering combustion conditions. Good combustion depends on the so-called Ò3 TÓ rule: temperature, residence time and turbulence. These parameters are generally set when the furnace is designed, but whoever runs it retains control of the temperature by making the thermal load vary, and controlling the combustion air flow. Poor regulation of one of these parameters can generate inadequate operating conditions. Due to the heterogeneous composition of domestic refuse, the combustion process develops under conditions of excess air (legislation requires at least 6% excess oxygen). During combustion, the carbon contained in refuse turns into CO2, so a defect in oxygen could generate carbon monoxide (CO) due to incomplete combustion of the carbon. In the same way, a defect in oxygen would cause the generation of unburned particles and incomplete combustion products (ICP). In order to
apply this treatment system, they must have a lower calorific power, greater
than 1400 kcal/kg, in order to ensure auto-combustion. In small-capacity
incinerators, additional fuel must be added, which tends to be fuel-oil
or propane, although NG is also used.
The main elements and equipment making up a domestic waste incinerator are as follows: a) an unloading
and storage area;
The furnace is not only the element supporting combustion (either by means of grills or rotary kilns), but it also produces the movement of refuse and its turning, which allows the primary air to mix with the waste in order to guarantee a good mixture of combustible and comburent. There are three phases in the furnace area: 1) drying phase,
the duration of which depends on the existing radiative heat, the level
of the mixture of refuse and its aeration;
The post-combustion
chamber has as its main functions:
Ashes or purification
waste are also composed, in a large part, of metal and silicate oxides.
They are considered hazardous waste and must be deposited in a controlled
landfill. We are talking about 2-4% of the amount of incinerated waste.
There are essentially
two factors determining the use made of the heat generated in incineration
processes:
In all combustion
processes when there are chlorine atoms, dioxins can be produced in larger
or smaller amounts, according to whether this process takes place or not.
Before the nineties, municipal waste incineration was one of the main sources
of dioxin emissions, but given the legal requirements for limiting emissions
and the adoption of technological measures, today, emissions have been
greatly reduced (see Table 3). Dioxin emissions in Spanish incinerators
have diminished by a factor of 17 between 1997 and 1999.
Refuse incinerating
plants have the following advantages when compared to other urban waste
treatment systems:
In fact, different municipal waste management models can be purchased in regard to the potential each of them has in contributing to gas emissions that increase the greenhouse effect (see Figure 2, page 37). It is clearly shown that integrated management models present lower emission factors, especially when they include incineration of the residual fraction. Conclusions It should be
pointed out that the criticism that has been made, and continues to be
made, in regard to waste incineration is justified in the facilities that
were operating up to the end of the eighties. However, from this point
on, especially in the European Union, due to its adopting strict limits
on emissions into the atmosphere, they have lost their raison dՐtre.
Taking
organic matter out of the rubbish
The author
argues, from the point of view of Òscience of the peopleÓ,
the case of composting on a small scale, ever in inner city dwellings.
He tells of his own experience, he is a former Councillor for the Sustainable
City on Barcelona City Council, and describes the case of Zurich and the
experiment in Barcelona itself.
Industrialist society has turned the natural flow of nutrients upside down, so that today what should be considered food for the soil Ðnutrients- ends up being a source of problems and pollution. Therefore, the
nutrients that go from the fields to the city in the form of cultivated
food, in doing their job of feeding people, generate organic remains which,
because they are not returned to the soil to keep it fertile, end up in
a heap on rubbish dumps or are burned in incinerators. Quite an example
of how a cycle of nature remains open because our society, despite being
qualified as modern, has proven itself unable to close it. The results
are impoverishment of the soil and loss of its fertility, which must be
replaced by increasing amounts of chemical fertilisers, the massive application
of which results in the biological death of this thin layer of the biosphere.
Composting means
subjecting all organic waste from the kitchen, home and garden to a natural
process of transformation in order to obtain valuable compost, which is
a product that improves the structure of the soil, giving it fertility
and saving on artificial fertilisers. Compost allows us to close the cycle
of Nature and return to the soil what the soil has given us in the form
of fruits, vegetables, cereals, etc.
This article presents the personal experience of the author from the day I realised that, where there is a will, there is a way to contribute as an individual, as a family and as a group to removing the organic fraction of the rubbish bag (in our house, this was almost half of the weight). This simple gesture is the beginning of a profound change in the way we relate to our environment. Background The author interest
in finding solutions to the problems of rubbish goes back to the 70s. In
the early Ô80s, I entered the contest called Be Mayor that Barcelona
City Council held for a few years, with the proposal entitled Implementing
refuse recycling in a community of 20 family homes in the neighbourhood
of Horta (Barcelona)Õ. The proposal was not selected by the jury
appointed by Barcelona City Council.
It is interesting to read today, almost 20 years later, the scientific justification made in the proposal. Based on the differentiation between Ôscience for the peopleÕ and Ôscience of the peopleÕ according to the theory of Ivan Ilich, it stated the following: Ç Ôscience for the peopleÕ is what has been called, since World War II, research and development, or simply R&DÈ. This R&D is carried out by large institutions, whether they be governmental, industrial, university, medical, military or foundations. Working within them are small groups of enterprising people who want to sell the results of their research to the institutions. This is usually a very prestigious activity, the goal of which is the common good Ðas those who support and practice it say - which is expensive and tax-free. It also offers well-paid jobs to people with high-level academic degrees. R&D can be social or natural, fundamental or applied, specialised or interdisciplinary. Use of the term Ôscience for the peopleÕ does not usually imply reproach, nor does it involve disapproval. It just means that the results of the research are not in any way related to the daily activities of the people practising them. R&D can be done on the neutron bomb, muscular dystrophy, solar cells, etc., as long as it is to the service of others. Obviously, Ôscience of the peopleÕ is not the same, because it means doing research with a shortage of funds or no funds, without sponsorship, without access to having the results published in newspapers or prestigious magazines, producing results that are of no interest to the market. The people who practice it do so in a methodical, disciplined way, they are well informed on the R&D in some specific fields, they use their results when they can and, in little more than a decade, they have started up an alternative publication network that is the forum for discussion and criticism of their efforts. As Valentina Borremans says, this Ôscience of the peopleÕ is research done to increase the value of the use of daily activities, without increasing the dependency of people in regard to the market or professionals È. But it is also clarifying to read the ecological and social justifications made then. In regard to ecology, the following statement was made: Ç There are already some who, in addition to seeing the municipality as an ecosystem and applying the laws of ecology to it, go even further and envision housing itself Ð not just rural housing, but urban housing as well Ð as an ecosystem: an integral urban home in which energy from the sun is taken to grow food and supply necessary energy, where power and water conservation are practised and where organic and inorganic waste is handled ecologicallyÈ. Social reasons were based on Albert EinsteinÕs famous statement that Ç a substantially new way of thinking is required if humanity is to survive È, and complemented by the contribution made by Ecoropa in the sense that it is not enough just to have a new way of thinking, but there must also be Ç a new way of living È that directly involves the way people are and behave. In addition
to these justifications, more ÔconventionalÕ ones were also
given. For example, it was said that: ÔThe cost for collecting and
eliminating the 31,755 kg/year of rubbish produced in the 20 houses was
238,162 ptas., of which 209,464 ptas. correspond to the recyclable part
of waste, whose gross value is 98,593 ptas.Õ . . . ÔIn summary,
each person in the community where the experimental research is carried
out pays 2,382 ptas/year for the right to throw 986 ptas. in the bin.Õ.
. . ÔIf the community were to recover the recyclable fraction of
the waste generated (827,929 kg/year), the amount of rubbish to be collected
and eliminated by cleaning services would be only 3,827 kg/year; in other
words, recycling would result in a weight reduction of 86 %.Õ
Composting in the Old Village of Horta, now a district of Barcelona This failure
to win the ÔBe MayorÕ contest made it possible for us to initiate
an experience that we have continued for 15 years now, which is on-site
composting of the organic part of the rubbish we produce in our family,
for the purpose of closing the cycle of nutrients reaching the city.
The unused part of fresh food that usually ends up in the rubbish is, in this case, set aside in a small container right in the middle of the family kitchen and, once a day, we place it in a composting bin, where it can turn into humus, which can return to the earth in order to keep it fertile. For the past four years, we have used a composting bin that has an approximate volume of 1 m3 and can be bought in specialist shops. When we began composting, about 15 years ago now, no composting bins were sold here, so we used a plastic-lined crate (like the kind they use to distribute bread to bakeries) that was a bit smaller (0.5 m3 capacity). This means taking
out a rubbish bag that weighs about half of what it usually did (1.2 kg/inhab/day),
by reducing it to 0.6 kg/inhab/day, because the rest of it (0.6 kg/inhab/day)
is turned into nutrient-rich compost.
Emissions of
greenhouse-effect gas -GEG - due to the disposal systems existing now in
the Barcelona area (dump and incinerator), had all the rubbish been dumped,
would have been:
This personal experience was very useful to me when I had the opportunity to serve as Sustainable City Councillor in the city of Barcelona (1995-1999). There, I was able to witness the reluctance and resistance many public posts feel towards the organic fraction of rubbish and the ecological way of reintroducing this fraction into natureÕs cycles. That is why I became involved in research to find what successful experiences there were in different places in the world to make possible the return of the organic part of rubbish to the soil in order to keep it fertile. This research let me see what was being done then (1997) in the city of Zurich and in other European cities. It was quite a discovery. Composting in the Streets and Community Areas in Zurich The group phenomenon behind the fact that in the city of Zurich there are now more than 80,000 people who practice the art of composting on a daily basis, thereby turning about 10,000 tons of organic waste into humus, began in 1983 when the cityÕs Parks and Gardens Service decided to begin a very special composting project. The city already had broad experience in composting, because since 1969 the Parks and Gardens Service had been operating a large plant where composting was done using organic debris from public parks, cemeteries, garden shops and private gardens. This way, a centralised composting plant treated a large part of the organic debris produced in the city. However, there was still organic waste, in the region of 20% of rubbish produced in private residences. This was one of the reasons that led to the Parks and Gardens Service initiating a project for composting domestic organic waste with the …kocentrum Langeburg. The initiative came from a person who convinced the people in charge of Parks and Gardens to investigate composting the organic part of rubbish generated in homes. The program differed from conventional composting (in centralised plants, after having proceeded with on-site selective collection of the organic fraction) in that what was proposed was to involve the public voluntarily. The idea was to encourage groups of people committed to composting the organic fraction of their own refuse in community facilities located near their homes. Two pilot projects were developed for two city neighbourhoods, one on the outskirts and one in the city centre. The suburban project was to promote private composting in yards and gardens, as well as to establish community composting facilities within neighbourhoods and residential communities. In the centre, the idea was to collect organic rubbish by means of suitable containers and to transport it to the central composting plant for preparation and treatment. The experience of composting the organic fraction of rubbish from the urban centre in a centralised plant allowed the city to gather important information on how willing the public was to participate in selective collection, as well as selection discipline, quantities, transportation and transformation. The second pilot project was run in an area of multifamily buildings with 146 residences, in which a community composting plant was installed on a central site. Citizens took their organic rubbish (from the kitchen and garden) to wire mesh collection containers (in the form of upright cylinders) that had been made available for that purpose. The job of composting was voluntarily taken on by people in the neighbourhood. Because the press, radio and television offered very positive information on the experience, the pilot project unleashed a huge demand for documentation, consultation, conferences and help for founding composting groups in the city as well as outside it. This project greatly surpassed all expectations. A Òcomposting hotlineÓ was set up, and in just one year, more than 450 consultations were made from Zurich, Switzerland and abroad. This experience enabled publication of the guidebook ÒNeighbourhood CompostingÓ, which indicated how to proceed from an organisational perspective (for making up composting groups) as well as offering specific techniques on the procedure of composting and the necessary time dedicated to running a community composting plant. Once, during an interview with the person who started this experience (in the early Ô80s), a journalist asked if the objective was to place a compost area in each and every corner of the city of Zurich. At the time, the very same person who started the experience answered no. However, later on, when he saw how the people of Zurich understood the idea and composted not just on the outskirts of the city but in the city centre as well, even he changed his mind and declared: Òcomposting is an activity that can be done just about anywhereÓ, and then continued by saying: Òin the city, in the most densely edified areas, we have three composting areas in which even I would not have believed it possible to compostÓ. Since the experience of community composting began (April 1985) at 4 points in the city, interest in this practice has not stopped growing. Already by the end of 1990 the Òcomposting hotlineÓ had taken more than 5,000 calls and there were nearly 500 composting points in the city. In 1993, there were 860 community composting points, and in 1997 they had reached 1,000 community composting facilities that composted about 5,000 tons of organic matter. Currently participating in this community composting program are about 80,000 people, and between 9,000 and 10,000 tons of residential organic waste is composted. All community composting points are attended by volunteers, people who are willing to do a bit more for the environment than just talk about it. In the city, there are two people permanently dedicated to tasks of advising and offering support to ÒComposting Interest GroupsÓ. Each community
composting point has a certain number of residences associated with it.
Varying widely between 5 and 100 residences per facility, in most cases
the points have more than 60 households per installation. A compost point
for 50 households requires a surface of only 20 to 30 m2. The places where
composting points are located tend to be shady spots in the geographic
centre of the residences they serve.
The municipal administration also edits a quarterly newsletter (4 pages) dedicated exclusively to this decentralised composting system. In addition to offering statistical data on the status of composting in the city, information is given on new projects, advice is offered and composting news is reported. The different groups that are doing composting are also portrayed. The initial nucleus tends to start with one or two people who show interest by calling the Òcomposting hotlineÓ. Following an interview with the composting encouragement team, a search is begun for other people who could be interested in the neighbourhood, and then a ÒComposting Interest GroupÓ is formed. This group begins drawing up a project to be presented to the neighbours of the site for the proposed composting point. An agreement must first be reached with the owner or administrator of the building in order to find a suitable spot. Once collaborators have been found, two lists are made up, one with the names of all the people interested in participating in selective collection and in bringing separated organic matter to the composting point, and another list of the so-called Òcomposting sponsorsÓ, who not only separate the organic matter in their homes and bring it to the point, but these are also the people who take care of follow-up and work to achieve good compost. The sponsors take one- or two-week shifts of composting duty. It goes without saying that the high level of public participation in this successful experience is directly related to the willingness on the part of a series of people who are determined to make possible what, until recently, was considered to be an act of faith: Òcomposting in the city is not possibleÓ. From personal initiatives to the involvement of municipal institutions (in the case of Zurich, the Municipal Parks and Gardens Service). Success also depends on a political willingness to encourage a way of doing things that translates into making it possible to solve problems at the point at which they are generated, and not wait for someone else to solve the problems that are the responsibility of everyone. Part of the success lies in having made available many high-quality publications offering information. The Swiss Federal Environmental Agency itself published a composting manual, but the city of Zurich also has excellent publications (ÒComposting ˆ la CarteÓ) and a high-quality video that just uses excellent images to explain the community experience of composting. Well-known artists have also participated in composting promotional campaigns. Zurich is not
the only city in Europe that does composting. There are quite a few more.
Basle, for example, has a mixed composting model: one is a model similar
to that of Zurich (community composting on private or public land, but
directly managed by those involved in it) and the other consists of composting
bins in public parks that receive organic waste not just from a set group
of people, but from anyone who wants to take organic waste there. Basle
now has 1,300 community composting points and about thirty open composting
bins in public parks.
Composting in the Parks of Barcelona All the composting-related experience gathered by the author, together with that of others who practice urban composting, was published in a small book entitled ÔGuide to CompostingÕ 1 that shows in a simple, easy way what composting is and how it can be done. This publication was presented (May 1998) in a very original way: in the farmhouse of can Cadena (Sant Mart' de Provenals) in front of a pile of compost, and the media were taken to visit two houses in Barcelona where composting is done (one using natural composting, and the other using worms for forced composting). Yet a city such as Barcelona, which is a pioneer in many initiatives, lacks this pioneering spirit in a field that is key to sustainability, involving the closing of the nutrient cycles, especially that of organic matter. In order to open the door to a vision of the city that would leave behind this nightmare, in which the city is a heavy load for the natural systems that sustain it, as Sustainable City Councillor of Barcelona City Council (1995-1999 term) I had the opportunity to promote, with direct involvement on the part of the Barcelona Municipal Institute of Parks and Gardens, an initial experience of group composting in a large Catalonian city. This was made material by means of the ÔComposting in Parks campaign2 , which was presented in a public ceremony in the Castell de lÕOreneta Park within the framework of the 1st Composting Festival (15 November 1998), in which the thousands of people attending were given small bags of compost made from urban park service pruning, clipping and mowing debris. The Composting Festival initiated a new way for us to celebrate autumn. But the first Composting Festival was only the starting point for an initial group composting experience with the active participation of neighbours living around places where composting bins were placed in different city parks. This pilot test consisted of placing composting facilities in 7 public parks in the city of Barcelona in order to have a certain number of families (179 families, 556 people) leave their organic waste to have it turn to compost in a visible, public spot. Management of the park composting facilities was by the Parks and Gardens staff assigned to the city parks. The parks chosen for this pilot test were: Parc de la Ciutadella, Can SabatŽ (Zona Franca), Poesia Street Gardens (Montbau), Parc Pegaso (Sant Andreu), Parc del Clot, Can Cadena (Sant Mart'), Nou Eixample. The experience fulfilled all expectations (only the one scheduled for Nou Eixample was never installed, but in 1999 it was placed in the park at Sagrada Familia). The results,
after two years of operation, are excellent, and the Municipal Institute
of Parks and Gardens has decided to expand it to more public parks in the
city of Barcelona, placing new composting bins in Plaa Gaud',
Les Corts Gardens, Joan Vinyoli Gardens (Sarriˆ), Plaa Joanic
(Grˆcia) and Parc de la Guineueta (Nou Barris), where more than 100 families
will contribute their previously separated organic waste.
By way of conclusion Composting is
nothing more than practising reciprocity with the Earth, because one of
its elements, living soil, with the help of rays from the sun and rainwater,
is capable of giving us what we need to feed our physical body, on the
condition that we give back to it what we take to feed ourselves.
Acknowledgements. ¥ My thanks
to Josep Esquerrˆ and Bettina Scheffer, practitioners of composting with
worms in conventional housing in the city of Barcelona, for the support
I received from them when making composting a public activity in the city
of Barcelona,
References 1 Esquerrˆ i
Roig, Josep (1998), ÔGuia de CompostatgeÕ, Sustainable City
Council, Barcelona City Council.
ÒMargarida, an Irresistible Catalan Woman In 1985, upon
her arrival in Pully, a residential town outside Lausanne, with the Swiss
economist husband she had met in Spain, Margarida began a round of contacting
people from the village businesses: ÒHello, my name is Margarida
and I come from BarcelonaÓ. People distrusted her, Òhere
people take a while to accept new neighboursÓ. In less than three
years, with her Catalan French, her spontaneity and her spark, she became
quite a character around the village. Today, she is known and appreciated
all over because of her initiatives in recycling waste, a cause into which
she has thrown herself body and soul after having tried to dedicate her
enthusiasm and energy to a few other endeavours.
The role of citizenry municipal waste as a collective responsibility Joan Subirats
This article
focuses on how to influence citizens in order to bring about certain changes
in their habits of consumption, on how to favour selective waste collection
and on a more active arrangement of urban models that are more consistent
with the challenge of sustainability. The author mentions some of the studies
and field work carried out in this respect.
1. Where do we start? Selective collection and social context Cities concentrate
resources of all kinds that they need to function, and this concentration
of people and resources generates a considerable amount of waste which
must be treated and managed. If we only consider waste from this point
of view (which some call Òend-of-pipeÓ) we omit the matter
of waste generation itself and of how we should try to minimise it or set
up systems which more fully include the life cycle of consumer products.
There is therefore widespread agreement in considering that the matter
of municipal waste is not only a matter of treatment, storage and elimination.
The complexity of the matter requires the generation of new ways to inform
and raise awareness among citizens of the problemÕs different dimensions,
working with companies to seek better alternative technologies, and promote
policies from the public administration that favour more sustainable practices
and discourage the current consumer trends which disregard the effects
they produce.
In spite of
everything, the fact is that despite an apparently greater environmental
awareness (to which we will refer later on when we deal with opinion polls)
the peopleÕs idea is still essentially centred on the traditional
concerns of scarcity and lack of development. In some sociological works,2
it has come to light that it has only been in the last few years that families
in the metropolitan area of Barcelona have stopped stocking up on basic
foodstuffs (flour, sugar, oil...), a practice that was followed for historical
reasons of periodic shortage and through deeply ingrained habits. Other
works have observed that concern for the environment always depends on
the maintenance of consumer capacities (only 1 in 10 Spaniards gives environmental
protection priority over economic growth)3. It is important to bear these
factors in mind when arguing that if people do not change the way they
see things and their approach to consumption, we will not get very far
in sustainable municipal waste management.
Finally, when analysing the aspects of the context in which we must place increasing awareness and public involvement in selective waste collection, we should also bear in mind how environmental policies have been built and executed in Spain and Catalonia in recent years. The approach that has dominated environmental policies in Spain (with all the complexity involved in a framework in which many levels of government act simultaneously in each policy) has been regulatory and corrective or reactive. As we know, the regulatory viewpoint almost always means a hierarchical, vertical viewpoint, imposed from the top downwards. And, moreover, in the building of this type of policy, the tendency has been to ÒarmourÓ the process of drawing up policies based on the peculiarities of the policy that seemed to impose highly technical viewpoints. Little wonder then that the approach of sustainable development and the demands that public involvement places on the most consistent and solid policies to approach urban waste management and treatment do not end up coinciding, due to the open and participative forms they require, with the aforementioned predominant style. Surely the tradition of public involvement in joint affairs, and the greater concern for environmental matters in other European countries, can help us explain significant differences in both the pace at which we advance and the instruments used. 2. How do we see it? The citizensÕ perception of the matter of municipal waste Much field work
has been done in an attempt to analyse the citizensÕ perception
of environmental problems in general4. In matters of municipal waste, an
evolution can be observed from the old concern with rubbish generically
to a clear awareness of what waste means and its selection and differentiated
treatment. There is no doubt that placing containers specifically for glass,
paper and card and other types of waste in the streets of most cities has
meant a significant change in popular understanding of the matter5. In
1996, in a poll carried out by the CIS (see note 4) amongst 2,500 Spanish
citizens over the age of 18, the placing of separate containers was the
second most mentioned of the environmental issues that had improved in
the home towns of those questioned (39.2%), close behind the increase in
the number of green zones (43.2%). Likewise, in a recent poll carried out
in the city of Barcelona by the Municipal Institute of Information Technology
(September-November 2000) amongst 1,200 residents over the age of 186,
selective collection was voted the most positive aspect of municipal action
in environmental matters.
In this same
respect, in the CIS poll of 1996, which asked which environmental or civic
action they practised habitually, the second most frequent answer given
was using public containers for domestic refuse after using litter bins
for paper. Thus, 65.6% of the 2,500 Spaniards polled said they habitually
separated their refuse into different types, while 15.8% said they sometimes
did it, and 8.9% admitted they never did it. However, this apparently high
level of good practice should also be re-measured in regard to the following
question, which asked what the person polled thought his fellow citizens
did. In this case, people thought that only 28.4% of Spaniards regularly
made this separation.
3. Do we all see it the same way? The personal variables that make for different perceptions and forms of behaviour Now, this set of percentages express the opinions and perceptions of the citizens in each area who were consulted in a generic fashion. To what extent do personal characteristics (sex, age, education...) influence the differences within these groups? Different studies7 have highlighted the influence of personal variables on ecological conscience, on the level of information and final attitude towards environmental problems in general, or, in the case we are dealing with here, towards waste. In the three polls we have used for comparison, we see relatively similar patterns. The profile of the person who most often answers ÒI donÕt knowÓ is one of a group made up more often than not by women, over 55, with only primary education or no education, who are retired, do not work or are housewives. The variable that offers the explanation is the level of education. The CIS poll
carried out in the whole of Spain, showed that sex has relatively little
influence, but the fact is that women have less information and show less
ecological concern for big environmental issues, while they place far more
importance on environmental problems that affect their everyday lives and
homes. Men trust information from scientists or the media more, while women
have more faith in ecologists and consumer and teaching associations. Women
take part more in proenvironmental actions than men, but they do so individually
and on the domestic front, whereas men carry out fewer actions but do so
as part of a group. Although most studies say that age has a positive correlation
with greater environmental conscience, it cannot be considered to always
be the case. The CIS data indicate that environmental information is far
more significant under 50 years of age, but, in contrast, certain patterns
of behaviour and greater consistency between information and environmental
conscience appears between 35 and 45, with a greater tendency to behave
in an environmentally correct manner, and with greater concern for close
everyday problems (in which field we would place waste), whilst young people
are not particularly inclined to acquire ÒgreenÓ habits,
although they worry more about general and complex issues, and are more
likely to act as a group in favour of the environment.
This data, which indicates social profiles which can be generalised to describe the entire population of Spain, is notably ratified but with significant connotations in the work carried out in the areas of Barcelona and Sant Adriˆ. In the case of the city of Barcelona, the general profiles derived from the poll tell us that, in greatly simplified terms, the profile of the person notably more disposed towards matters of sustainability and the environment in Barcelona, tends to be female, aged between 35 and 54, who, although admitting to having little information on the concepts behind such issues, has natural inherited attitudes that lead her to save on resources and accept that we must recycle and make the most of everything we have. Her being disposed to the fundamental issues of sustainability would require greater awareness, information and co-operation, as this is key to the change of habits and to many of the principal issues of consumption and waste separation. On the other hand, the profile of the person who shows the least understanding of the need to advance towards more sustainable conduct, tends to be young, male, between 18 and 34, who, although fairly well informed of environmental problems, with a clear understanding of what sustainability means, does not act consistently and worries more about other issues. His habits seem far removed from what he says he thinks and knows. And beyond these profiles, the Barcelona poll shows clearly that, in general, people have more information, a stronger opinion, better habits and more willingness to compromise, the older they are - although they have not reached retirement age - the better educated they are, and when they hold professional posts or, for some questions, are housewives. The poll that
concerns us asked explicitly whether people would be very or quite willing,
reluctant or totally unwilling to separate their refuse at home, take part
in projects to improve their area, pay an additional specific environmental
tax, or collaborate with ecologist groups. The option to separate refuse
at home, was by far the most popular (around 90% said they were very or
quite willing to do so, whilst affirmative responses for the other items
varied from 20% for the tax to 60% in the case of taking part in projects
to improve their area). However, the differences between age groups and
sexes were also significant. Thus, women were the leaders in separating
refuse whilst men took first place in other items (coinciding with the
comments made on the CIS poll), and by age groups, above all young people
and those over 65 were the least willing to collaborate in separating refuse
at home. By contrast, the 35- to 54-year-olds were the most willing to
carry out this task.
4. How do we change? Some ideas and experiences to modify behaviour, by encouraging and improving selective collection Studies of opinions or perceptions are very often limited to offering data on what citizens say they think. In some cases, however, the type of question asked or the methodological viewpoints posed enable us to go slightly further and set out lines that enable us to improve the practices under analysis. With regard to the CIS poll we have been looking at, although amongst the questions there were few aimed at these objectives, there are a few points we can make. Most people interviewed thought that more information should be given on environmental matters. They say the rest of Europe does it better than we do, as they have more information on such matters. However, one must point out that the Spanish set little store by the information coming from public administrations or political parties. Far more credibility is attributed to (in descending order): ecologist groups, scientists, the media or international organisations. But these same people believe that environmental education is more important than information if the attitude of the Spanish to environmental problems is to improve. Finally, when designing communication and information strategies it is important not to forget the role played by television (over 70% said they heard of environmental news via this medium, as opposed to 15% who read it in the press or 10% who heard it on the radio). There is also a great difference in the credibility of town councils amongst the public administrations, as over 42% said that local governments are the public institutions most concerned about the environment, whereas 18% said the same of the Autonomous Communities and just over 10% chose the Central Administration. All together, they indicate certain lines of action and strategy to be followed in order to have greater impact on certain campaigns or when attributing responsibilities and the follow up of policies such as selective waste collection. In the case of Barcelona, the questions in the poll asked the citizens what disadvantages they found in separating refuse and what action would have to be taken to simplify this task. The main disadvantages for residents of Barcelona, as shown in their spontaneous responses (they could give more than one), were: lack of room at home (37.2%), lack of time (31.8%), they were unaccustomed to doing it (25%) or they couldnÕt be bothered (22.9%). Far fewer answers were to do with aspects regarding the placement of containers (too far away, 12.6%) or their non-existence (11.7%). Young people in particular said it was inconvenient or they couldnÕt be bothered (33.8% of those polled between 18 and 24), and people between 45 and 54 were those who complained most that the containers were too far away (16.2%). When asked what could be done to help people considerably or quite a lot when separating refuse, the most frequent responses were: Òput the containers nearer homeÓ (78%), Òknowing that the authorities treat it properlyÓ (76%), and Òempty the containers more oftenÓ (69%). Far fewer votes were for the answer Òfine those who do not separateÓ, only 37% said they agreed ÒcompletelyÓ or Òquite a lotÓ. Women were more in favour of fines than men (41.8% compared to 31.5%). This poll also asked whether the information received by residents of Barcelona on how to separate refuse and what is done with it once it is put in the containers, was very, quite, not very or not at all satisfactory. Most of those polled (57.3%) said that the information they had on how to separate refuse was not very or not at all satisfactory, and even more significant the number (75.9%) who said the same of the information on what is done with the refuse once it is put in the containers. This data is linked to other elements of the poll that indicate that 30% of citizens do not know what is done with waste in Barcelona, or to the fact that almost 90% think that the impact of Barcelona on its environment through the waste it generates is very or quite negative. From the work carried out in the Sant Joan district of Sant Adriˆ assessing the experience of organic collection, it can be observed that residents took a more active part in the campaign. Distributing a special bin along with information on the selection of organic matter proved very positive. Aside from the inconvenience of having so many different bins or containers at home, everyone considered it a positive experience. However, things gradually cooled off, as shown by the fact that residents stopped doing it or did it less frequently. A connection was observed between daily shopping and distributing refuse between containers, by housewives, a key sector in the positive development of the experience. One of the most significant factors in the Sant Adriˆ experiment was that the special bags for organic refuse (which many families found expensive) were an obstacle to success, in that once those that were distributed free of charge had run out, people either stopped doing it (a minority) or used any type of plastic bag (most of them). What conclusions can we draw from all this? It would appear obvious that information is a key element in matters of refuse. There is no significant opposition to the matter, there is no opinion against selective collection. Nor do the majority think that selective collection would be better imposed through regulations and penalties. This information should focus on specifying the different elements of selection, particularly regarding what is not glass or paper/cardboard. The concept of organic will probably not be difficult to introduce, there is already a certain tradition of reusing this type of waste, but as for plastics, tetra briks and other unspecified refuse, their fate seems more difficult to divine. On the other hand, anything that helps to make a habit of refuse selection appears to be decisive, as the general notion is that this is something that makes life ÒdifficultÓ, or causes inconvenience. How far away the containers are, access design, their proximity to local shops or the type of bag that can be used, particularly for organic matter, etc., are all decisive factors. And let us not forget that there is a lack of awareness and information on the use of waste, and that the administration people take most notice of is local government, who should lean on well-known NGOs in the area, to ensure efficient introduction in the early stages of the process. 5. How do we move forward? The experimental features of selective municipal waste collection The specialist literature being drawn up and the putting into practice of public policies, highlight the importance of consideration of the level of agreement on the objectives to be achieved by the policy concerned, and the certainty that exists regarding the means to be used to achieve the desired goals. From this analysis, we can draw important conclusions on the degree of certainty surrounding each policy and the type of strategy to be used (see table 1, page 52). As we can see, from this crossing of logic, we have four possible scenarios with different degrees of certainty and uncertainty. Only one of them can operate within a framework of certainty-certainty. Although this is the framework favoured by experts, and it is even taken for granted when designing strategies and forms of implementation, we must realise that this is not the most usual one in the real world of public policy, with its ever-increasing uncertainty of all types. Can we apply this scheme to environmental policies? Can it help us to advance in designing strategies to facilitate selective waste collection? Using the opinion polls analysed in this article, and considering them from the viewpoint of how to improve waste separation to allow more sustainable management, we would place the matter at the intersection of certainty for objectives and uncertainty for means. Indeed, nothing appears to indicate serious disagreement regarding the objectives to be achieved. We have not found any perceptions, opinions or conduct that are clearly against a differentiated waste treatment and therefore selective collection. Does the same go for other policies or environmental actions? Although we have not dealt with this in this work, we can state that matters such as using cars less, or those concerning changes in the model of consumption would be at different intersections of the table, because of the basic disagreements on the objectives to be achieved or due to a complete lack of consensus. With regard to waste, doubts concern the means more than the objectives. However, the issues concerning natural resources such as water, energy or others, and the need to reduce their use, are not only things that citizens are well aware of, from the point of view of objectives, they even share the means to make it effective (restricting consumption, saving, individual or family practices to avoid waste, and so on). Despite the exploratory nature of this table (see table 2, page 53), we think the data gathered vouch for this attempt at classification. Strategies in energy saving, the reduction of the use of vehicles or directing the model of consumption, would require further articles and research. But, in the case we are concerned with, and if we are not mistaken, we could say that we need to advance further in selective collection, reinforcing the solid base already in existence regarding the objectives to be achieved (area of certainty) and, on the other hand, work much more on matters associated with the means to be used in order to advance in the achievement of these objectives. This means, specifically, favouring information channels on what to do with waste and on what is done with it following selective collection. It means doing it in a Ònon-bureaucraticÓ way, or if you like, not strictly from the world of public administration, but making greater use of the network of agents surrounding the problem (scientists, NGOs, consumer organisations, shopkeepers...), and always as locally as possible. And making it easy, that is, not making life too difficult for people. Concentrating on our natural allies in these matters at the moment, who are women in particular, and adults in general. Not forgetting very specific campaigns aimed at young people who show a certain inconsistency between what they know and what they do. We must support and symbolically ÒrewardÓ those who already act positively, through information and awareness, and isolate those who do not comply, facilitating correct behaviour and intellectually ÒpenalisingÓ those who say they know and then do not put it into practice. In short, we must do everything that intellectually reinforces the need for consistency between opinion and conduct. And, we believe, this should be done experimentally, like it has in Sant Adriˆ and other places, to allow people to learn and to teach. In this way, we will gradually be able to increase the certainty regarding the means to be used, and the problem will ÒonlyÓ be a technical one. ¥ References 1 For an analysis
and balance of local Agenda 21s in Spain, see Nuria Font-Joan Subirats
(eds.), Local y Sostenible, Icaria, Barcelona, 2000
An Interview with Salvador Rueda Biologist and Psychologist. Director of the Agència d'Ecologia Urbana de Barcelona "Organic
Waste Matter Is a Strategic Flow for Sustainability"
Salvador
Rueda holds degrees in biology and psychology. At the beginning of his
career, the work he did for six years in an educational program in the
Bes-s district had a profound influence on his professional evolution.
After that, he was head of Environmental Services at Sant Adriˆ del Bes-s
City Council and the Environmental Management Unit of Barcelona City Council.
From 1990 to 1992, he co-ordinated the revitalisation programs for the
Ciutat Vella district. He then joined the team under Albert Vilalta, councillor
of the Department of the Environment of the Government of Catalonia. During
this period, Salvador Rueda directed the drafts for some of the regionÕs
main environmental plans: the Sanitation Plan, the Special Waste Management
Plan of Catalonia, the Municipal Waste Program and the Metropolitan Waste
Program. Salvador Rueda has been specialising in different aspects of the
urban environment from an integral perspective. He is currently the director
of the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona.
What is the purpose of the Urban Ecology Agency? To reconsider cities using ecological criteria and introducing criteria for sustainability in city management. The Agency wants to reconsider the entire city in an integral, systemic way that includes memory as well as forward studies and modelling in order to better anticipate our future. The Agency is an organisational instrument incorporating systemic knowledge of the city in diagnostics as well as planning. On a technical front, it carries out the political role played by the mayor of a city. The mayor incorporates information and interests from the ÒentireÓ urban reality that reaches him or her in sectoral, partial ways. His or her ability will result in more or less integration of the information when decisions must be made. One of the AgencyÕs objectives is to create the theoretical framework, instruments and methodology that will bring systemic and intentional knowledge into the decision-making process in urban matters. So, this doesnÕt involve environmental palliatives: youÕre on the attack and are proposing a model for a different kind of city... Exactly. When
someone says to me: Òyou work with the environment, donÕt
you?Ó I answer no; I work with cities, I work with the urban system
in its entirety. The environment isnÕt particularly interesting
to me; itÕs interesting as long as the organisational and management
proposals, when we reconsider the city, allow us to reduce dysfunction
in, among other areas, the environment. The Agency would like to influence
all aspects of the city, whether it be urban development, public safety,
mobility, marginality... Each one of these variables is important if it
is important to the system itself. Therefore, ecology begins to make a
great deal of sense when we investigate which strategic elements should
be used in planning cities. Ecology allows for truly interdisciplinary
work. When specialists from different fields - town planners, architects,
engineers - work together, an important aspect is to have a clear frame
of reference, to know in which direction one is headed.
Is diversity one of the key directions for the city? The city is,
basically, contact, exchange and communication. The sense for of city is
multiplied when we join together the ÒdiverseÓ components
of the city. It seems reasonable to say that diversity or, in other words,
the complexity of a certain urban fabric, would be one of the criteria
used in planning it. In academic ecology, the stability of a system is
determined by the diversity of those who carry the information. In cities,
information carriers are people who have different incomes, knowledge and
cultures. Carriers can also be legal entities: economic activities, facilities
and associations.
Cities should have more decision-making power? Obviously, because
ÒtheyÓ manage urban systems. More power and more training,
because very few talk about that mixture, but it is basic. Nevertheless,
if you leave many mayors to their own devices, they worry about occupying
as much territory as possible and urbanistically colonising it, as if we
were living in the Wild West. Therefore, more power should be given to
cities, but one has to be careful: it is a necessary condition, but insufficient.
The problem lies in knowing where one is headed. If we knew, the model
chosen would have to condition the rest of the forces driving cities along.
Today, however, this transformation is practically in the hands of money,
which rules and advances towards any given situation by means of another
area, whether it be political or social.
Exploitation
of the EarthÕs systems, its support systems, provides us with resources
that keep our cities organised. The way we are organised, our models of
urban management, places increasing demands on natural resources, while
generating a higher contaminating impact on the environment. Growing exploitation
and contamination involves an increase in the pressure placed on the support
systems to the point of being ÒunsustainableÓ. This increase
in pressure on the environment does not translate into a significant increase
in the organised information or complexity of urban systems.
One of the main elements placing pressure on the systems is the waste we generate. From the perspective of Catalonia and its cities and towns, if we were to take a quick picture since the Transition, what would be the diagnosis? The explosive
growth curve for waste took place in the 80s. Before then, our society
was very thrifty; we recycled and the dump system worked. It is true that
when you have nothing, you make use of everything.
For example,
the owner of Tetra brik...
And in Catalonia... As a result of the uproar over the Industrial Waste Plan of 1990-91, the Government of Catalonia created the Department of the Environment. At the head of the new organisation was a highly capable person, Albert Vilalta, an excellent manager. This leadership, together with the GovernmentÕs earlier failure to make the Waste Plan work, made it possible to propose progressive waste management. The swing of the pendulum made Law 6/93 possible, and this law outlines how waste is to be managed in our region. This fact is extremely important. Catalonia has been ahead of Spain in organisation as well as legislation. Therefore, we have a legislative framework, a new Department and a framework for progressiveness. Yet this initial
enthusiasm has been losing steam...
Are the reasons technical or political? The Autonomous
Government has the responsibility of developing treatment and disposal
facilities; in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, it is the responsibility
of the Metropolitan Environmental Agency. On the other hand, the Law on
Bases for Local Regulations makes cities and towns responsible for collecting
refuse. I think the goal should be to have the cycle of materials, in this
case waste, be the responsibility of just one administration.
Should the Autonomous Government be the highest authority? Subsidiarily, although it already is. Authority could also fall to counties, within a political and technical framework different from the current one, or to associations of municipalities or consortia. What is clear is that the organisation we ought to have in order to pool collection and treatment should have the coherence that the current fragmentary situation cannot offer. Many problems are due to this separation of functions. Treatments are determined according to what is collected and how it is collected. The bottom line is the municipalitiesÕ lack of funds. The land that must be sold is a municipal resource. Cities and towns survive by generating gains in value, by building right, left and centre, in addition to introducing activities that allow them to capitalise on them. Taxes from the State represent less than 15%. Remember that there are countries such as Denmark, in which municipal governments receive 60% of taxes. Obviously, these types of services work very well in Danish cities. In the Municipal Waste program, there was an economic figure for a municipal fund to be provided by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia. But this hasnÕt been done. Perhaps no one wants to solve the problem. The situation is clear: we have one of the most progressive laws in Europe. Closely tied to the idea of sustainability, it was passed just after the Rio Summit. We are in a good position, but there are many obstacles to be overcome. In addition to the Municipal Waste Program of Catalonia, there is the Metropolitan Waste Management Program. What are its features? There is a clear intent to treat organic material waste management as the systemÕs backbone. The Waste Program also does this, but to a lesser degree. New technologies are proposed, such as methanization Ðintroduced in Catalonia by Josep Puig. At the time, a risk analysis was done on introducing a new technology that was barely developed in Europe. Why is organic material so important? There are many
reasons explaining why organic material must be the systemÕs backbone.
In the first place, if you donÕt separate it, but you do want to
separate other fractions, what you obtain are contaminated fractions because
of the water and moisture in them. Therefore, organic material soils and
contaminates all the garbage. If you separate it properly, you get a noble
product, fertiliser, which is what our grandparents always did.
More arguments from the perspective of ecology? Organic material comes from the earth. Calculations made by experts show that human beings appropriate approximately 40% of the primary net production of the landÕs plants. In fact, the surplus is what plants give us because they donÕt need it for their own existence or reproduction. This surplus, whether fruit, leaves or other forms, are used by all of the EarthÕs organisms. LetÕs not forget that plants harness energy from the sun, and they create organic material. Therefore, we appropriate 40% of this primary net production of the EarthÕs ecosystems. If we increase this use, we are headed straight for disaster, because the other organisms also need this energy. If other organisms do not have access to it, this will have repercussions on the network of life on the planet. What would be the solution? Well, returning organic material to the land. It has to be able to again feed the organisms that have been able to provide us with their surplus. Currently, we substitute it with chemical products that are manufactured by consuming a great deal of energy and do not return to the land the biofertility features that are so necessary to the soil. But in Catalonia, we have an excess of organic material. We generate more fertiliser than we can consume. It is true that in Catalonia we have too much organic material or, in other words, nitrogen, to apply to our soil. Contrarily, in Spain there is a huge lack of organic material. There is a deficit at a ratio of 3 to 1. Spanish soil is very poor, and it would be a strategic element for solving one of the main environmental problems in Spain: erosion. Organic material and water are basic elements for tackling the problem of erosion. Therefore, we should agree on a way to create the organisational and legal structure that would enable these flows to be channelled. Would it be very expensive to create a system of production and distribution? In the first
place, it would have to be compared to the cost of using chemical products
applied to the soil. Manufacturing these products consumes a great deal
of energy. If we were to pay for the real cost of the energy we extract
from the land, the cost of manufacturing chemical fertiliser would be extremely
high; however, as we know, prices of things in general, and energy in particular,
are ÒinstitutionalÓ, which means political. Today, the price
of gasoline in the United States of America is several times lower than
in Europe. Therefore, expensive and cheap are relative terms.
Solving the problem of waste means making enormously political decisions. What would the key actions be? Raise the price
of energy for certain things. Energy does not cost the same for everyone.
Prices vary according to each groupÕs ability to apply pressure
and exercise power.
How would this material be managed? When applicable, by methanizing and obtaining energy. This energy could contribute the majority of domestic energy consumption in Catalonia. The material would include, in addition to organic garbage, liquid manure, sludge from treatment plants, waste from the food industry. This organic material bank would create energy first of all, but also organic addenda, compost and substrates. Some batches could be enriched with nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium in order to replace most agrochemical products. What actions are necessary to encourage this? The drawing
up of a management plan for organic material in Catalonia containing, among
other things, organisational measures such as the creation of a compost
institute in Catalonia, and another one on a national level to propel flows
of stabilised material to other parts of Spain. Otherwise, we will set
ourselves up for being told that we Catalans want to ÒpalmÓ
our refuse off onto the rest of Spain.
What sites in the territory would be used to install methanization and composting plants? Distribution
of facilities would have to be based on rational criteria, in the right
place according to the critical mass and flow generation itself.
WouldnÕt they be rejected in the territory? On the contrary. Right now, there are two ecoparks, each over 300,000 tons; one is under construction and the other is programmed for the metropolitan area. They have not been challenged because the program and participation processes were done correctly. And a couple more will be done. An experiment with organic matter has been started up in Sant Andreu. What is involved? First a preliminary point. A waste program has, from the onset, an initial pitfall to be overcome, which is the willingness on the part of the public to put each thing in its proper place. If they donÕt want to do this, everything else done later is useless. Attempts have been made at mechanical separation, but this has not been achieved because organic material is moist and contributes liquids that soil everything, making it impossible to separate it. We have seen resounding failures that have been backed by large investments, such as the Gavˆ-Viladecans plant. Therefore, the first stumbling block in ÒgoodÓ management of waste is the willingness of people. The public has to understand what it is being told. In Sant Andreu we propose several ideas we will put into practice. In the first place, separating means changing habits. First idea: recycling is easy. If we compare it to the highway code, which has hundreds of rules that are vital to our own lives and the lives of others, recycling is much easier; it only has four rules. Organic material, or food scraps, is the easiest fraction of the refuse to separate, as proven by studies and experiments done in other cities. When you separate organic material, the rest of the fractions are very easy to separate. Everyone knows what glass, paper and cardboard are. Light packaging may be more difficult; even so, it is a smaller problem. What is important is that by separating organic material, we recover between 40 and 50% of the weight of the refuse. With paper, it is almost 30% more. Second aspect. It is often said that in Spain and Catalonia, the public is not prepared to do this type of thing, that we arenÕt enlightened. The truth is that in Catalonia and Barcelona, within the context of the worldÕs cities, our level of coexistence is enviable. Barcelona is an example of solidarity in regard to public response to catastrophes. Thousands of people join in sports events, and it is the city that had the most volunteers for Olympic Games in the world. We appeal to the supposition that environmental subjects are good causes, and the public believes it. It is not true that we are unwilling; we just need convincing explanations. How was Sant Andreu convinced? In the Sant
Andreu district, we were led by the hand of CEPA, an ecology group that
believes. And when a person or group believes in something, they have a
different way of projecting, expressing feelings and convincing. If you
want to be convincing, you have to be convinced.
We created a character called Barni, and a gang of friends - four cats -, to make it fun. There are also information points and notice boards, and each resident is given a dustbin with two compartments for separate disposal. The dustbins are free. Shopping bags are used to take the paper, glass and light packaging to the containers. Work will also
be done with schools, associations and businesses.
What phase is it in? The informative phase began in March, and in April the executive phase began. Sant Andreu is the laboratory, and the idea is to expand it to the rest of the city. It is an initiative of Barcelona City Council and the Agency co-ordinates the process. One last and very important aspect: packaging. How is it managed within this system? Packaging management
is regulated by the Law on Packaging and Packaging Waste. It is transposed
from a European directive. At the time, discussion on the directive was
long and sterile during the socialist era. As many as fourteen drafts were
made, and discussion was centred on how to regulate PVC. That is a lesser
topic, what is important is the management system. The directive proposed
that the general system be deposit, but Spain adopted the French system,
euphemistically called the Òintegral management systemÓ.
But manufacturers dont agree... The Law on Waste
says responsibility for the product is with whomever places it on the market.
Therefore, they must know what will happen with empty containers. I dont
think its fair to pass the buck onto consumers or cities and towns. With
a deposit system, manufacturers recycle or reuse almost 100% of their containers.
All for a dollar, which the consumer gets back, as if the money were in
a savings account. The chosen model heightens the problem and I think that
was a mistake.
Perhaps the greatest responsibility lies with bars and shops... Where does the problem start? When you get to the root of it, the proposal tends to be radical. In this case, the key element is who is responsible for the products placed on the market. It is according to this responsibility that legal, organisational and economic instruments must be generated to make whoever is responsible be responsible. The logistics behind containers means a huge waste of money and energy. Trucks carrying carbonated water took back empty bottles. Energy wasnÕt wasted anywhere. This has turned into a crisis due to the logistics of Òjust-in-timeÓ delivery in superstores, which are the big enemies of the deposit system. Why? Their logic is contrary to this system, and shelves function as showcases as well as product storage areas. They have no stock. If a deposit system were to be implemented, their logistics system would have to change, and part of their space would have to be used for storage. In fact, these superstores, through their sales strategy, promote certain lifestyles... This is a very important aspect. For example, pre-packaged food has nothing to do with our traditions. We, on principle, should recover our traditional way of eating. This way, we would generate more organic material and lower volumes in our refuse. Furthermore, it has been proven to be healthier and better than what we import from the United States or the Anglo-Saxon world. Americans themselves call part of what they eat junk food . Lifestyles are involved in the process of generating waste. We must recover our own lifestyles, which are intrinsically good and which have worked perfectly well for us. The Mediterranean diet is closely linked to our lifestyles and, as has been proven, is an excellent diet that offers us, among other things, one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Superstores and malls are harmful to cities, they weaken commerce and modify our characteristic lifestyles. Nevertheless, there are daily habits, new customs, that also force shops to adapt if they want to survive... ThatÕs
right. If there is a distinguishing aspect to our cities, it is the markets.
They are big magnets that generate wealth and diverse activities around
them. They build cities. Shops are also a part of this constellation of
activities in that their specialisations introduce new items and added
value to the city.
Environmental regulations Local ÒwasteÓ
regulation
1. General Increase in ÒWasteÓ Generation Waste is covering
Europe, and its constant increase is associated with increased economic
activity, which is not true. It is no news that increased waste is a symptom
of a lack of efficiency in current production processes. The traditional
link between increased activity and progress is broken when the phenomenon
of waste is analysed.
2. Increase in Waste as Indicator of Economic Inefficiency As the European Environment Agency, or EEA, indicated in its latest report from 2000 on waste, waste generation should be considered as an indicator of the level of societyÕs inefficiency in the use of raw materials. In this sense, increase in waste must be understood as a negative economic factor that slows growth or gives it a negative sign. 3. Environmental Impact of Waste This negative
sign, basically exemplified in the squandering of resources, also causes
environmental impact that is summarised by the EEA as follows:
Therefore, the
general objective of wealthy countries is to minimise waste generation
and improve waste management and treatment through recycling, reuse and
recovery.
5. A Global Conception of the Waste Phenomenon A key element
in the fight against waste generation is its global conception, based on
waste as a resource whose life cycle is broken by its industrial configuration
as a product and by models of consumption in wealthy countries. Secondly,
the fight to minimise waste involves a process geared towards taking greater
advantage of soil, preventing the contamination of soil, air and water,
minimising the permanent risks of dangerous waste and reducing the negative
impact brought about by the increase in transportation associated with
waste management and treatment.
6. Transformation of Resource into Waste and its Legal Definition When is a resource transformed into waste? At what moment? Some would say never, that any waste is a resource whose energy value has been modified, causing an increase or decrease in energy that is recoverable or not, depending on the technology available. Others would say, from a more phenomenal point of view, that the passage from resource to waste is a fact that, due to its idiosyncrasy and magnitude, must be recognised. This passage has a great deal to do with the definition of waste. If we consider only the legal definitions of the concept of waste, we will see that there is no conceptual definition. According to the latest Directive on waste, Council Directive 2000/76/EC regulating incineration, ÒwasteÓ is Òany solid or liquid waste defined under letter a) of Article 1 in Directive 75/442/EECÓ (art.3.1). It is therefore reasonable to say that this is not a definition, in that the concept defined is included in the definition itself. Even so, if we follow the thread of the definition and turn to Directive 75/442/EEC as amended by Directive 91/156/EEC, we read that waste is understood to be Òany substance or object in the categories set out in Annex I which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard. The Catalan Law on waste includes in article 3.1.a) a definition that is similar in part ÐÒAny substance or object whose owner discard or intends or is obliged to discardÓ- removing the reference to a specific list, which even so is applicable by imperative of the European regulation transposed in Article 3 a) of Spanish Law 10/98 on waste: ÒAny substance or object in the categories set out in the Annex to this law, which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard. In any case, this consideration shall be given to those included in the European Waste Catalogue (EWC), approved by community institutions. In summary,
there is no clear concept of waste. A legal approach could be guided by
two requirements: a) inclusion of the substance, material or product in
the European Waste Catalogue (EWC) and b) action, intent or obligation
of the owner to discard it.
7. Classification of Waste by its Hazardous Nature Given the lack of conceptual definition, waste is classified into three broad groups: 1. Hazardous
waste, also called special waste under Catalan regulations, is the waste
considered under Directive 91/689/EC.
8. Municipal Waste Under the latest classification, municipal or urban waste is considered non-hazardous waste and its definition suffers the same lack of foundation as the general concept of waste. Waste is characterised as being municipal, not according to where it is produced or generated, but according to the site where the last owner disposed of it. It is not municipal waste in the strictest sense of the word, but rather products or materials that are randomly abandoned in the municipal territory. In accordance with Law 10/98, of 21 April, urban or municipal waste is that generated by individuals, businesses, offices and services, as well as all waste that is not classified as hazardous and which, due to its nature or composition, is similar to the waste produced in the above sites or activities. - The following shall also be considered urban waste: - Waste derived from cleaning public streets, parks, recreational areas and beaches. - Dead pets, as well as abandoned furniture, vehicles or other effects. - Waste and debris from minor construction work and domestic repair. Council Directive
1999/31/EC, as well as the Catalan law on waste, use a similar definition,
although it is not as precise, given the difficulty in listing the different
typologies of waste that must be assimilated into waste generated by individuals,
businesses, offices or services in the municipal area.
9. Specific Problems with Municipal Waste The Waste Agency of the Department of the Environment of the Government of Catalonia made public in 2000 that urban waste in 1999 reached the amount of 3.3 million tons, meaning an increase of 10.73% in the volume of urban waste compared to 1998. Comparatively, this increase was much higher than industrial waste (5%). This large increase
in municipal waste places it at a level of 1.49 kilos per person/day. In
Barcelona, the increase in municipal waste was 4.86%, with three different
types of published causes: 4.1% economic growth in 1999, the impact of
tourism and seasonal residences.
Among the most
deficient aspects was the selective collection of organic matter. Despite
being legally obligatory from July 1999, during the month of September
of that year, collection was made in only 27 of the 158 municipalities,
which translates into 17% fulfilment.
Collection and management of municipal waste is the responsibility of local agencies. Currently, all councils in towns with over 5,000 inhabitants Ða total of 158 in Catalonia - are obliged to introduce containers for organic matter, to install collection centres and treat municipal waste. Currently, the waste collected is treated in the different selection, treatment or composting plants. The rest, 65%, is still sent to controlled landfills or incinerated. The legal framework
for managing and treating municipal waste is seriously affected by the
new Directive 1999/31/EC on waste dumping, which comes into effect on July
16, 2001. In this sense, suitable transposition of the European regulation
has not yet been effected.
10. Competence/Incapacity of Local Institutions Management of
municipal waste, under Law 6/93, as well as that of packaging and packages,
requires radical changes. There is a growing commitment on the part of
town councils to the environment and, specifically, to the problem of waste,
which is easy for the public to appreciate. The new challenges require
social participation and, above all, acceptance by all social agents who
place products on the market which municipalities must collect in the form
of waste. In this sense, the need has been outlined at an institutional
level to promote efforts in three directions:
Even so, there is a certain consensus on the responsibility attributed to municipalities regarding waste not corresponding to the limitations of their financial resources, the precariousness of their means and their competencies. It is true that the local territorial level, because it includes all the territory, may be the only level to which such a basic function as collecting municipal refuse may be attributed. It is also true, however, that municipalities must also take care of the externalities that producers, distributors and merchants derive from their processes, which reflect scant fiscal representation in municipal income, since they are transferred by means of taxes on profits to the State. Municipal waste collection services can be rendered by isolated municipalities or by municipalities grouped under supramunicipal agencies. This is provided by Law 6/1987, of 4 April on county organisation in Catalonia, as well as Law 7/1987, of 4 April, which establishes actions in metropolitan Barcelona and creates the Metropolitan Agency for Hydraulic Services and Waste Treatment. The problem
of the increasing growth of municipal waste can only be addressed from
the perspective of co-responsibility among all institutions for implementing
guidelines for sustainable production and consumption. This means strengthening
effectiveness in using natural resources and minimising impacts. In this
sense, there is a lack of legal definition of responsibilities in regard
to supralocal administrations.
11. Lack of Resources and Deficiencies in the Packaging System and Packaging Waste. In regard to
the lack of resources, an increase in participation in public resources
is also missing on the part of local agencies directly, and indirectly,
with autonomous or state institutions taking on the responsibility of defining,
regulating and managing municipal waste.
12. Waste Management Fund Decree 43/2000,
of 26 January, regulates the Waste Management Fund provided by Catalan
law. The Fund is attached to the Waste Agency, and has as its purpose financial
co-operation with works and services under local agencies in matters regarding
waste management, especially in regard to municipal and assimilable waste,
as well as management of packaging waste carried out by local agencies.
Costs financed by the Fund are for investment and exploitation, and the
contributions of beneficiaries cannot be less than 50% of the amount of
the projects.
Annex General and Specific Urban Waste Regulations European Union
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