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The myth of waste avoidance-waste does not cause waste

In the discussion about sustainability many people consider waste avoidance as a key measure how material flows ofhumans could be omitted. This is based on the conviction that waste avoidance protects the environment and permitssustainable acting. However, waste management data show that the gross domestic waste amounts, i.e. the total ofrecycled, treated and disposed household waste, bulky waste, street sweeping waste, green waste and market waste in Germany remains unchanged at a level of 500 to 600 kilograms per capita and year (kg/cap*a) during the last decades (similar also in other industrialized countries).

This means no waste has been avoided. Why does waste avoidance notwork?The present paper is based on the thesis that waste avoidance does not work because waste avoidance does not exist.Waste cannot be avoided, only products. So far the fact is repressed: not the waste but the products are the reason forwaste. Consequently only products can be avoided and not waste which has already emerged and accumulated as aresult of human production and consumption (see the same misunderstanding in the sustainability debate related to theterm 'dematerialisation�). However, the absolute necessity that the high material throughput of people has to bereduced by product avoidance with its consequences of life style change is still a taboo for the majority of people inindustrialised countries. The present paper wants to be conducive to eliminating the link of waste management to analleged waste management domain called waste avoidance. The challenge consists in combining wastemanagement/economy in the future with product economy in a higher-level domain of sustainability. This 'neweconomy� of global matter management could be labelled as adduct management or adduct economy referring to theidea that matter is in permanent change or transformation. Adduct is both product and waste. In that way productavoidance - as disagreeable as this idea might be for many people - can be considered as one of the biggest challengesin the 21st century. This is the only way to find the path to sustainability as meant in the Brundtland-Report in 1987contributing to the long-term conservation of the earth as a whole (not an 'undefined� environment) by reducing the material throughput of mankind.

Copyright:	© European Compost Network ECN e.V.
Quelle:	Orbit 2012 (Juni 2012)
Seiten:	12
Preis:	€ 12,00
Autor:	Dr. Alfons Grooterhorst
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