Waste hierarchy/policy

The main driving force towards recycling has been national and international plastic waste management policy. Within the EU, the policy is based on waste hierarchy, meaning that the first choice is waste prevention and then waste recovery (reuse, recycling and energy recovery), with preference to material recovery. Thus the type of legislation found is ... 

There are profound opportunities for both industry and the individual to prevent the generation of waste indeed, pollution prevention is today primarily stimulated by economics, legislation, liability concerns, and the enhanced environmental benefit of managing waste at the source. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 established pollution prevention as a national policy, declaring that waste should be prevented or reduced at the source wherever feasible, while pollution that cannot be prevented should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner (Ref. 1). The EPA s policy establishes the following hierarchy of waste management ... 

Terms closely related to cleaner production are pollution prevention and waste minimization, which emphasize the preventive aspect of cleaner production. Closely associated with cleaner production is the hierarchy of waste treatment strategies, enunciated in the U.S. 1990 Pollution Prevention Act. Environmental agencies in most countries have adopted this hierarchical approach in their policies. Waste treatment strategies, in order of preference, are... 

Policy in the USA is very similar to that in Europe, and is based upon a hierarchy of waste management options. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) was introduced in 1976 and provided for what is known as "cradle to grave" control of waste - from its generation to final disposal. Amendments... 

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