What are the Hierarchy of Solid Waste Management?

The hierarchy of waste management, which emphasises avoidance, reduction, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, and eventually treatment or disposal, is the foundation of sustainable waste management. With renewable and less wasteful techniques at the top of the pyramid, it seeks to prioritise actions for the best use of resources.

In this article, we will examine how the hierarchy of solid waste management is essential, to sustainable waste management.

·         Prevention and reduction

The top aim is to prevent and minimize solid waste production. By increasing effectiveness and minimizing consumption, this can be accomplished.

First, businesses and customers should choose products that require the fewest resources to produce. Additionally, it's best to avoid buying single-use or disposable items if you can, because they represent linear waste, in which resources are harvested, processed, and dispersed. These are thrown away only after a short period of time.

·         Re-use

An emphasis on buying things that can be repaired or reused, as well as an instruction on how to reuse waste products, should be made if the consumption of a product cannot be avoided.

Reusing may be done without processing new materials, which consumes money, energy, and frequently other resources. One of the core principles of the zero-waste ideology is reuse, which can take the form of having shoes repaired, giving away clothing and other goods for people to use, or even finding recipes for food leftovers, rather than throwing them away.

·         Recycle

Recycling is the best choice, after reusing an item. Since, we are now working with materials that have passed the end of their useful life in their existing form; the procedure now begins to resemble conventional waste management.

Recycling maintains materials in use, preventing the need to mine new resources, and reducing some of the negative effects of just throwing away waste.Recycling is viewed as less desirable than the alternatives, because it costs resources, energy, and money to convert waste into useable products.

Nevertheless, the benefits of recycling vary greatly, depending on the waste materials. For example, aluminium offers benefits that more than offset the cost of its own recycling, while requiring less than 10% of the energy of using virgin metal. Glass, however, offers energy savings of only 10 to 15%, while still being a better option than straightforward waste disposal.

·         Composting

Composting is also featured at this level of the hierarchy,since, it enables the diversion of organic waste from landfills, and transforms it into a resource that can be used to generate fresh products.

·         Energy restoration or energy recovery

The next step is energy recovery, which entails converting waste into useful heat, power, or fuel, such as biogas.This is accomplished using a variety of techniques, including incineration (energy recovery), gasification, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion, and landfill gas (LFG) recovery, some of which overlap with the final stage of waste treatment.

It reduces the amount of waste that will physically end up in landfills, and produces energy during the burning process, which would otherwise require fossil fuels to produce.

·         Treatment or disposal of solid waste

It is the final step in this hierarchy. It refers to incineration, without energy recovery or use of sanitary landfills. Some garbage may inevitable experience this, but it should be prevented for as long as feasible by using sustainable waste management practices.

How can we assist?

The system designers at Netsol Water will be able to assess, all input and output needs for the client, and select the most efficient, practical, modern and sustainable solid waste management technique, for municipalities, residential areas, commercial areas, as well as industries. We can also ensure sustainable methods of solid waste collection and disposal, along with recycle and reuse.

Netsol Water is Greater Noida-based leading water & wastewater treatment plant manufacturer. We are industry's most demanding company based on client review and work quality. We are known as best commercial RO plant manufacturers, industrial RO plant manufacturer, sewage treatment plant manufacturer, Water Softener Plant Manufacturers and effluent treatment plant manufacturers. Apart from this 24x7 customer support is our USP. Call on +91-9650608473, or write us at enquiry@netsolwater.com for any support, inquiry or product-purchase related query.