Waste Classification Systems for Sustainable Waste Management - Desklib

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WASTE CLASSIFICATION
By (Student’s Name)
Professor’s Name
Course
University
City
Date

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Acronyms and Abbreviations
DEA - Department of Environmental Affairs
EIA - Environmental Impact Assessment
EPR - Extended Producer Responsibility
IndWMPs - Industry waste management plans
NGOs – Non-Governmental Organizations
NWMS – National Waste Management Strategy
StatSA – Statistics South Africa
WC&MR - Waste Classification and Management Regulations
WIR – Waste Information Regulations
WML – Waste Management License

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Waste Management Classification Systems
Introduction
With the goal to bring the social and the wide economic problems of unequal development of the
society to balance, the South African government is committed to achieving development that is
sustainable as well as safeguards the environmental resources (Shrivastava et al., 2019). It is very
important to do away with the consumption of unwanted raw materials and commit towards
achieving sustainable management of wastes, resource efficiency and product design.
Sustainability implies re-consuming products where necessary and gaining the product's value at
their life span by recovering energy and recycling (Cobbinah & Addaney, 2019). Although
there may be no feasibility in the prevention of wastes, there is a possibility that upon applying
the systematic hierarchical management of wastes very favourable options of managing wastes
will be achieved. These options include recycling, treatment, re-use and recovery as opposed to
landfills. The National Environmental Management, that is, the Waste Act No.2008 contains a
legislative requirement known as NWMS (Venkatesh, 2019). The NWMS purpose is to attain
the goals of the Waste Act that outlines and specifies its scope and contents. Individuals
concerned and state organs have the responsibility of strengthening the NWMS.
The system of categorization integrates the realization of the following (Deus et al., 2019):
 The manner in which it is controlled for example its finality in terms of disposal or
treatment, recycling, re-use or recovery;
 The type of produced wastes;
 The waste sources for instance industries.
The following are the major functions of the categorization system (Qi & Shen, 2019):

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 To enable the production of data to support international responsibilities such as mercury
and POPs;
 To help determine national bodies for reporting wastes that are hazardous to the WIS;
 To allow waste stream management above the hierarchy of waste, for example, diverting
organic wastes from landfill.
 To collect data on a particular type of wastes to enable proper management of these
specific streams of waste such as e-waste and batteries;
 Give information in regards to statistical management and generation of waste to StaSA;
 Facilitate the reporting on the management and generation of hazardous wastes
IMPLICATIONS AND IMPORTANCE OF THE CLASSIFIED SYSTEMS IN WASTE
MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA AND OTHER NATIONS
Facilitates Interpretation of Definitions
The interpretation of major definitions has been made clear through the development of waste
management classification systems since they are the sources of the process used in planning in
regards to a national inventory of managing and classifying wastes in South Africa and other
nations (Cortellini et al., 2019). Through the classification system, the wastes have been defined
as either hazardous wastes or general wastes. Interpretation of the keywords is very vital because
if it is not addressed clearly, there may be dramatic effects on the outcome of inventories
(Themelis, 2019). The basic questions that the classification system addresses before any
survey are conducted are as follow:
i) What objects or materials are defined as wastes?
ii) When are wastewater emissions regarded as hazardous wastes?