Optimizing Urban material flows and waste streams in urban development through principles of zero waste and sustainable consumption

Sustainable Solid Waste Management

Volumn , Issue , 2012, Pages 103-131

  Lehmann, Steffen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA   (Australia)

Author keywords

Adaptive re use of buildings; Changing behavior; Closed loop urban metabolism; Material flow; Product stewardship; Recycling and reuse; Reducing consumption; Resource recovery; Urban waste streams; Waste avoidance; Zero waste concept

Indexed keywords

BIODIVERSITY; BUILDING COMPONENTS; CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY; ECODESIGN; ENERGY EFFICIENCY; INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH; MODULAR CONSTRUCTION; POPULATION STATISTICS; RECYCLING; STRUCTURAL DESIGN; SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT;

ADAPTIVE RE USE; CHANGING BEHAVIOR; MATERIAL FLOW; PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP; REDUCING CONSUMPTION; RESOURCE RECOVERY; URBAN METABOLISMS; URBAN WASTES; WASTE AVOIDANCE; ZERO WASTE;

URBAN GROWTH;

EID: 84900646189     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (52)

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3. Blue: Water, Energy, and Waste, 29, Grimshaw Architects (Ed.). Andrew Whalley, London, UK, p. 56 (2004).
4. Braungart, M. and McDonough, W. Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point Press, New York, USA (2002). Note: It has frequently been argued that the concept of “waste” should be substituted by the concept of “resource.” For instance, Michael Braungart points out that the practice of dumping waste into landfill is a sign of a-failure to design recyclable, sustainable products and processes. In his research, Braungart focuses on flows of energy, water, materials, nutrients and waste. Process-integrated technology, as advocated by the “cradle-to-cradle” approach, includes the cascading use of resources in which high-grade flows are used in high-grade processes and residual waste flows are used in lower-grade processes, thus utilizing the initial value of a resource in the most efficient way.
5. Braungart, M. and McDonough, W. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point Press, New York, USA (2002). MacKay, D. J. C. Sustainable Energy-Without the Hot Air; UIT Cambridge Ltd., Cambridge, UK (2009). Benyus, J. M. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Harper Perennual, New York, USA (2002). ‘Carrot City’, Building Design Proposal for Dallas with Integrated Urban Farming. Project Illustration; courtesy MOV + Data, Lisbon, Portugal (March, 2009).
6. Chalmin, P. and Gaillochet, C. From Waste to Resource. An Abstract of World Waste Survey, 2009. Veolia/CyclOpen Research Institute, Paris, France (2009). Note: The “Gruene Punkt” (green dot) recycling system in Germany was introduced in 1991 and legislated in 1993, under the leadership of Minister Klaus Toepfer. One outcome is that today, 82% of all packaging is recycled. In Germany, economic growth has been decoupled from the amount of waste first time in 2008. At the end of its life-cycle, products are unlikely to end up on landfill or in incineration plants; over 87% of all aluminum and tinplate waste, as well as paper and plastic, is recycled and fully re-used in the production loop. Most paper manufacturers have also become paper recyclers.
7. Chaturved, B. Ragpickers: The bottom rung in the waste trade ladder. International Plastics Task Force (January, 2010). Available online: www.ecologycenter.org/iptf/Ragpickers/indexragpicker. html (accessed on Oct 30, 2010).
8. Dey, C., Berger, C., Foran, B., Foran, M., Joske, R., Lenzen, M., Wood, R., and Birch, G. Household environmental pressure from consumption: An Australian Environmental Atlas. In Water, Wind, Art and Debate: How Environmental Concerns Impact on Disciplinary Research. G. Birch (Ed.). Sydney University Press, Sydney, Australia (2007).
9. Dey, C., Berger, C., Foran, B., Foran, M., Joske, R., Lenzen, M., and Wood, R. A Household environmental pressure from consumption: An Australian Environmental Atlas. In Water, Wind, Art and Debate: How Environmental Concerns Impact on Disciplinary Research. G. Birch (Ed.). Sydney University Press, Sydney, Australia, pp. 280-315 (2007).
10. Easton, S. Manufacturers to Arrange for Recycling of Australia’s e-Waste. Available online: http:// www.upiu.com/articles/manufacturers-to-arrangerecycling-for-australia-s-e-waste (accessed on Sept. 10, 2010).
11. Easton, S. Manufacturers to Arrange for Recycling of Australia’s E-Waste. UPIU [Online], August (2010). Available online: http://www.upiu.com/articles/manufacturers-to-arrange-recycling -foraustralia-s-e-waste (accessed on Sept 10, 2010).
12. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Recover Your Resources: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Construction and Demolition Materials at Land Revitalization Projects (2009). Available online: http://epa.gov/brownfields/tools/cdbrochure.pdf (accessed on Oct 10, 2010). Note: The waste mix in Australia contains 22% food waste; 18% plastics; 22% glass; 12% paper; 6% cardboard. Each Australian produces 360 kg of organic waste per annum. Thereof, 250 kg are disposed off in landfill, significantly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions (Data: 2010). Australia produces approximate 45 million tonnes of waste annually, and around 50% of this (22 million tons) go to landfill (Data, Australian Waste Management Association: 2010). Australia currently operates 700 official, licensed landfills where methane gas from organic waste needs to be captured. However, organics in landfill are a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The landfill levy varies widely from state to state, between $30 and $60 per ton. The recycling costs will always be more than landfill costs (except for steel, aluminum and other metals, which have high embodied energy and can easily be recycled). As material values of metals increase, the resource recovery for precious metals is likely to assist in increasing recycling rates.
13. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Recover Your Resources: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Construction and Demolition Materials at Land Revitalization Projects (2009). Available online: http://epa.gov/brownfields/tools/cdbrochure.pdf (accessed on Sept 10, 2010). Note: Estimating that only 40% of the construction and demolition building materials were reused, recycled, or sent to waste-to-energy facilities and the remaining 60% was sent to landfills.
14. Faulstich, M. Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany. Personal communication (Sept 14, 2010).
15. Fischer-Kowalski, M. Society’s metabolism. The intellectual history of material flow analysis, Part I. 1860-1970. J. Ind. Ecol., 5, 61-78 (4).
16. Girardet, H. Cities, People, and Planet: Urban Development and Climate Change, 2nd ed.; Wiley & Sons. Oxford, UK (2004).
17. Girardet, H. Creating Sustainable Cities, (Schumacher Briefing #2). Green Books, Devon, UK (1999). Here, Herbert Girardet points out the importance for cities to adopt a circular metabolism: -In nature, waste materials are absorbed beneficially back into the local environment as nutrients. Cities don’t do that. They work by way of taking resources from one place and dumping them somewhere else causing damage to nature. We need to turn this linear process into a circular process instead. The recycling of particularly organic waste is important for the sustainability of large cities. We need to meet this challenge and create a metabolism that mimics natural systems. Materials and products that we use need to be biodegradable. Plastic, which does not decompose easily, can be produced so that nature can absorb it more effectively.
18. Girardet, H. World Future Council, London, UK. Personal communication (Sept 14, 2010).
19. Grosse, F. Is recycling part of the solution? The role of recycling in an expanding society and a world of finite resources. SAPIENS, 3, 1-17 (2010). Note: The adaptive re-use of existing buildings is always a more sustainable strategy than building new. Instead of tearing down and rebuilding (which usually means losing the materials and embodied energy of the existing building), adaptive re-use allows the building to be given a new lease of life; an approach that was the norm until a generation ago. Now, our focus needs to return to upgrading the existing building stock. Recent research conducted by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) in the U.S. indicates that even if 40% of the materials of demolished buildings are recycled, it would still take over 60 years for a green, energy-efficient new office building to recover the energy lost in demolishing an existing building.
20. Gulland, I. Zero Waste Scotland, Glasgow, UK. Personal communication (Sept 14, 2010).
21. Head, P. Entering the Ecological Age. Report on the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Brunel International Lecture 2008, ICE, Arup, UK (2009). Available online: http://www.arup.com/Publications/Entering_the_Ecological_Age.aspx (accessed on March 10, 2010).
22. Hobson, K. Thinking habits into action: The role of knowledge and process in questioning household consumption practices. Local Environment, 8, 95-112 (2003). Note: Product stewardship refers to the responsible management of manufactured goods and materials, and includes regulated schemes (e.g., appliances, packaging and car take back schemes in the European Union) and industry-government agreements (e.g., Australia’s National Packaging Covenant. Available online: http://www.packagingcovenant.org.au (accessed on Oct 10, 2010)).
23. Lane, R., Horne, R., and Bicknell, J. Routes of re-use of second-hand goods in Melbourne households. Aust. Geographer, 40, 151-168 (2009).
24. Lehmann, S. Sustainability on the Urban Scale: Green Urbanism. In Urban Energy Transition, P. Droege (Ed.). Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2008). In this chapter I point out that with dwindling raw materials and the depletion of resources, energy and material resources continue to be consumed and wasted at an accelerated rate. Our current energy generation method and distribution network has not changed much since the industrial revolution, and the way we extract virgin materials to consume them (“cradle to grave”) has also not changed much either. The construction industry has a huge responsibility, as it is one of the most wasteful sectors. Concrete, for example, is responsible for a significant amount of global CO2 emissions. For a while now, researchers have predicted that several construction materials will be exhausted by the end of the century.
25. Lehmann, S. The Principles of Green Urbanism. Transforming the City for Sustainability. Earthscan, London, UK, pp. 261-269 (2010).
26. Lenzen, M., Wood, R., and Foran, B. Direct versus embodied energy. The need for urban lifestyle transitions. In Urban Energy Transition: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Power. P. Droege (Ed.). Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 91-120 (2008). On the subject of recycled aggregates for concrete, see also: Recycling Concrete: Cement Sustainability Initiative; World Business Council for Sustainable Development, WBCSD, Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 1-8 (2009). Available online: http://www.wbcsd.org/includes/ (accessed on March 1, 2010).
27. Linacre, S. Household Waste: Australian Social Trends. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, Australia, p.10 (2007).
28. Lovelock, J. A Final Warning, Pinguin Books, London, UK (2009).
29. Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., and Behrens, W. W., III. The Limits to Growth, Universe Books, New York, USA (1972).
30. Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., and Behrens, W.W., III. The Clube of Rome. The Limits to Growth, Universe Books, New York, USA, pp. 10-12 (1971). On Poulsen and Hansen’s Research, see also: Danish eco city proves waste management can reverse greenhouse trend. Science Daily (Nov 30, 2009). Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091130103634.htm (accessed Oct 20, 2010). On sustainable urban development, see also: United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Our Common Future, G. H. Brundtland (Ed.). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK and New York, USA (1987).
31. Perkins, A., Hamnett, S., Pullen, S., Zito, R., and Trebilcock, D. 2. Urban Policy Res., 27, 377-396 (2009).
32. Poulsen, T. and Hansen, J. A. Wastewater treatment and greenhouse gas emissions. Waste Manage. Res., 27, 861 (2004).
33. Public Review Landfill Capacity and Demand Report. see: [35] (2009). Full newspaper article, Waste Solution Left to Rot as Landfill Capacity Runs Out. Sydney Morning Herald (March 21, 2010). Available online: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/(accessed Dec 20, 2010).
34. Recover Your Resources: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Construction and Demolition Materials at Land Revitalization Projects. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Washington, DC, SA (2009). Available online: wwwepa.gov/brownfields/tools/cdbrochure.pdf (accessed on Dec 20, 2010).
35. Rickwood, P., Glazebrook, G., and Searle, G. Urban structure and energy-a review. Urban Policy Res., 26, 57-81 (2008).
36. Rogers, R. and Power, A. Cities for a Small Country. Faber & Faber, London, UK (2000).
37. Satterthwaite, D. The implications of population growth and urbanization for climate change. Environ. Urban., 21, 545-567 (2009). Architecture and urban development must now address these new complex challenges that have arisen with our throw-away consumer society; architecture will need to deliver more, beyond the classical “practicality and beauty” the entire process of building design, construction and product manufacturing must be based on future, more sustainable material flows and opportunities for resource recovery and R&D in the field of material efficiency and recyclability is increasingly important.
38. Schatzki, T. R. A new social ontology. Phil. Soc. Sci., 33, 174-202 (2003).
39. Shove, E., Watson, M., Hand, M., and Ingram, J. The Design of Everyday Life. Berg Publishing, Oxford, UK (2007).
40. South Australia’s Draft Waste Strategy 2010-2015. Consultation Draft; Zero Waste SA: Adelaide, Australia (2010). Available online: http://www.zerowaste.sa.gov.au/upload/about-us/wastestrategy/DraftWasteStrategyV2.pdf (accessed on Sept 10, 2010). For instance, Australia’s recent National Waste Policy subtitled “Less Waste-ess Wasteaste " (Australian Government, 2009) acknowledges both the growing waste problem and the need for research and action beyond current recycling initiatives to minimize the creation of waste. Furthermore, it emphasises the importance of product stewardship schemes that anticipate new roles and responsibilities for both producers and consumers of products and materials, see also: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Australia’s Environment Issues and Trends; ABS Cat. No. 4613.0, Canberra, Australia (2006).
41. State Government of New South Wales. Public Review Landfill Capacity and Demand Report, Wright Corporate Strategy Pty Ltd, North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (2009). Available online: http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Xtm8jz6j7WI%3D&tab id=70& language=en-AU (accessed on Sept 10, 2010).
42. Tonkinwise, C. De-materialism and the Art of Seeing Living. or Why Architecture’s Self-Images lead to McMansions. Presentation at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (2005).
43. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). Solid Waste Management in the World’s Cities: Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities, 2010. Earthscan Ltd., London, UK, pp. 114-116 (2010).
44. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). Solid Waste Management in the World’s Cities: Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities, 2010. Earthscan Ltd.: London, UK and Nairobi, Kenya (2010). Alone in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a quarter of a million children are living in the streets, surviving from the collection of garba they collect almost anything and sell it to micro scrap dealers, who sell it on to recycling companies.
45. Walls, M. Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Design. Report to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; Resources for the Future (RFF Press), Washington, DC, USA, pp. 69-71 (2006).
46. Waste Report 2010. SEA Organization: Riverside, CA, USA (2010). Available online: http://www.solv.org (accessed on Aug 10, 2010).
47. Weisenbach, D. Weisenbach Recycled Products (based in Columbus, Ohio, USA). Personal communication (Sept 14, 2010).
48. Williams, M. Cylch Corp., Wales, UK. Personal communication (Sept. 14, 2010).
49. World Population Growth Forecast. United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat): Nairobi, Kenya (2010). Note: Global world populations in 2010 were 6.8 billion. It is predicted by UN-Habitat to increase to 9 billion by 2050. While the population in some countries is shrinking (Japan, Germany, Italy, Russia), other countries, such as India, have a fast growing population. The population in India is forecast to overtake that of China’s by 2050 (India is predicted to have 1.6 billion people). We will soon reach the limits of the Earth’s “carrying capacity” (what Rees and Wackernagel call “overshooting”, 1996), for instance, the Earth’s reduced capacity to supply fresh drinking water to all citizens of a city (as we have seen in Sub-Saharan African cities and in Mexico City). The world’s population has been growing significantly since around 1800 due to the improved control of diseases and longer life expectancy. As a consequence, numerous scientists recommend halting further growth in cities in arid, hot climatic regions. At the same time, global agriculture is approaching a natural limit. While the amount of food production needs to keep increasing in pace with population growth, there is hardly any undeveloped farmland left on the planet. Experience shows that birth rates fall when women are well educated, when they aspire to a career, or when they chose to marry later and to have only one child. Clearly to slow down this immense population growth and to delay a food/water/energy supply disaster, we have to succeed in three important areas: reducing consumption and changing behavi improving technology; and limiting population growth through education programs.
50. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2010 Revision. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: New York, USA (2010).
51. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2010 Revision. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, Nairobi, Kenya (2010).
52. ZWSA Survey (2009). Available online: http://www.zerowaste.sa.gov.au (accessed on Dec 10, 2010). The need to go beyond materials recycling is discussed: For durable household and electronic goods, increasing rates of obsolescence, ongoing toxicity issues and limited options for reuse or recycling are contributing to a growing waste problem. The scale of change required to reverse this trend cannot be achieved through recycling alone-as Linacre notes the increase in recycled goods has been countered by an increase in overall material flows. The inputs of resources and materials and outputs of wastes need to become more closely linked.