The Waste Hierarchy

You may very well have heard of The Waste Hierarchy, but what does it actually mean?

It provides a preferred order for waste management, that is the best ways to deal with our rubbish, waster and unwanted items.

There are five levels, from the most ideal solution, prevention, to responsible disposal, which is the least ideal way of managing our waste.

The Waste Hierarchy was created by the European Union (EU), as part of their Waste Framework Directive. This lays out the principles of waste management that is required by member countries of the EU.

In the UK the Government sets out it's own guidance on applying the Waste Hierarchy which dates from before the UK left the EU. It is aimed at any business or public body which generates, handles or treats waste.

The Five Levels of the Waste Hierarchy

The Waste Hierarchy has five levels of dealing with waste, ranging from most ideal to the least ideal.

It is usually represented by the type of diagram shown here, an inverted triangle with five layers representing the different ways of dealing with waste.

Prevention

Prevention, the highest level on the Waste Hierarchy means to avoid generating waste in the first place.

This will include designing items to minimise waste as well as taking an item's disposal into consideration as part of the design.

It can also include designing an item to last as long as possible as well as the ability to repair an item.

Packaging is also part of the design of any item, as well as transport considerations.

Reuse

The next level down of tthe hierarchy is reuse, which means simply to use items again without processing. This may include buying secondhand items, and selling or donating items rather than disposing of them to go to landfill.

It may also include repurposing items. It could be as simple as reusing a cardboard box which you received to send out a parcel of your own, or using old newspapers as void fill in the same parcel.

Recycling

Recycling is the third level of the framework, which means to convert waste materials into new products.

This is the best known way of using waste materials to make new items. Perhaps you dilligently put your bottles, paper and tin cans in your household or business recycling.

Other ways of recycling include processing less obvious items into usefull new products. For example, for many years waste tyres have been recycled into material for building roads.

Energy recovery

If there is no other possiblility for reusing or recycling materials, it may also be possible to extract energy from waste.

The most obvious one is combustion; burning waste to produce heat which can drive a turbine to produce electricity in the same way that burning coal or oil does.

Some waste products, mainly natural materials such as textiles, wood and other organic matter, can produce gas which can be harvested to burn. This is called gasification.

Disposal

The lowest level of the hierarchy is Disposal, which is often termed as Responsible Disposal.

As a last resort, waste can be disposed of. This means sending it to landfill or burning it without harvesting the energy from it.

How Can I Use The Waste Hierarchy?

Although the Waste Hierarchy was created as a guide for manufacturing it is an enormously valuable tool that we can use in our everyday lives.

If we take care to use the same principles when we consume items we will make our own contribution to waste reduction and minimisation.

The Waste Hierarchy

The Five Levels of the Waste Hierarchy

How Can I Use The Waste Hierarchy?

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