The Defra waste management hierarchy is a framework that ranks waste management options by their environmental impact. It guides businesses and public bodies to follow five steps, from most preferred to least preferred. They are:
- Prevention (the best option): Using less material in design and manufacture, keeping products for longer, and using less hazardous materials. The goal is to avoid producing waste altogether.
- Re-use: Checking, cleaning, repairing, or refurbishing whole items or spare parts so they can be reused without significant reprocessing.
- Recycling: Turning waste materials into new substances or products. This includes composting.
- Recovery: Anaerobic digestion, incineration with energy recovery (producing fuels, heat, and power), gasification, and pyrolysis.
- Disposal (the worst option): Including sending waste to landfill or incineration without energy recovery.
Guidance on applying the Waste Hierarchy | Defra June 2011
Post. Category waste management, tags EfW, reuse.
Click on a link to see related content. For an index of all categories and tags on this site click here.