Introduction

In most parts of the world solid waste is being collected by either the municipality or a private company and brought to a designated area or landfill. As waste production increases, these landfills reach saturation earlier than anticipated. Suitable new landfills are scarce and located at greater distances of cities. Longer hauling is needed to dispose of the waste.

 

Landfilling as such is not a sustainable solution. It is depleting and damaging our natural resources. Moreover, many landfills lack proper management and are in fact a social and environmental burden to society; attracting underprivileged people that scavenge the landfills for resalable materials, faced with diseases and appalling life circumstances.

 

A more sustainable approach to the waste problem is being demonstrated by the Dutch government. In the Netherlands, government policy revolves around the so-called ‘Lansink Rule’, a course of action that sets priorities for waste treatment:

• prevention
• recycling
• energy production
• incineration
• landfilling

Under this rule landfilling is the last resort, secondary to more desirable alternatives. The implications of the Lansink Rule become evident in the Recycling Center Concept, that will allow for waste treatment to become a supplier of primary materials, energy and Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). It realizes the only truly sustainable solution for the waste problem: the reuse of its fractions.