Significance of Landfills in Modern Waste Management

Landfilling represents by far the oldest way of waste disposal. On a global scale even today the largest fraction of municipal solid waste is still landfilled. In the frame of the present paper the function of landfills in modern waste management is discussed, whereby special focus is given to the European waste hierarchy, which states that landfilling is the least desirable disposal option for waste. The results of the analysis conducted clearly shows that despite the requirements of the EU waste framework directive, landfills will still play an important role in future waste management. This is due to the main functions of landfills, which include the function as a safe sink for hazardous substances and the function as a temporary storage for potential secondary resources.

According to the EU waste framework directive (European Parliament, 2008) member states of the European Union must emphize on the waste hierarchy to ensure that waste is dealt with in the priority order of:

1. prevention;

2. preparing for re-use;

3. recycling;

4. other recovery (for example, energy recovery);

5. disposal.

The waste hierarchy claims, that prevention of waste is more desirable than preparing for re-use, and reuse is again better than recycling, and so on. The most undesirable option is the final disposal of waste, which includes besides the combustion of waste (without energy recovery or with low energy efficiency) landfilling. Hence, only if all other measures (prevention, re-use, recycling, recovery) of waste management are not practicable, landfilling represents the last resort. The idea behind the waste hierarchy is to utilize as much waste as possible in order to substitute primary resources.

The main question that arises out of the waste hierarchy for landfilling is the following: Are landfills still required in future or are they becoming obsolete in a modern sustainable society.

The aim of the present paper is to discuss this question and try to answer it, whereby special focus should be given to the different developmental stage of the national economies of Europe. Thereto the historical role and development of landfills will be evaluated on the one hand, on the other hand the significance of landfilling in the anthropogenic metabolism is investigated.

Copyright:	© Thomé-Kozmiensky Verlag GmbH
Quelle:	Waste Management, Volume 2 (September 2011)
Seiten:	7
Preis:	€ 0,00
Autor:	Ass. Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. techn. Johann Fellner

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