Cradle-to-grave is a model representing a product’s full life cycle journey, starting from raw material extraction, production, use, and disposal after the end of its life. At the end of the value chain, the current standard waste management practice is either landfill or incineration, or recycling.
Before any product reaches the consumer’s hand, it passes through a series of steps in a value chain.
Raw Material Extraction (Cradle)
Manufacturing & Processing
Transportation
Usage
Waste Disposal (Grave)
This is the Linear economy. Contrary to the circular economy, it generates waste along the value chain and does not have a circular design placed in it to manage them well. As a result, most of the waste is either incinerated or landfilled, both of which can be environmentally costly.
For most companies, the most favorable and widely advertised waste management system is recycling. Collecting, sorting out the waste, and recycling at the end of the value chain gives some kind of relief for some, thinking they have done their job for the environment, but recycling, although better than landfilling and incineration, is not the best option.
At the current state, for many, it’s best to just deal with waste than redesign the whole system according to the principle of the circular economy because it’s expensive and time-consuming.
Producing waste also means we are wasting materials that are still functional. While throwing away valuable materials, we are replacing them with virgin material at the feedstock every time we are running the process, making it economically and environmentally costly.
How much waste does the world produce?
Every year, about 2.01 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste is generated globally, and is expected to reach 3.40 billion tonnes by 2050. At least 33% of that waste belongs to the category of—not managed in an environmentally safe manner.
Figure 1 demonstrates the amount of waste generated in 2016 by region (millions of tonnes/year) and projected waste generation in the years 2030 and 2050.
Waste generation in high-income countries is projected to increase by 19% by 2050, compared to approximately 40% in low- and middle-income countries. The East Asia and Pacific region generated most of the world’s waste in 2016 and is expected to stay highest in 2030 and 2050.
However, the fastest growing regions are Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia where, by 2050, total waste generation is expected to be more than triple and double respectively, compared to 2016.
The waste generation in 2016 contributed approximately 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent greenhouse gas emissions globally, i.e 5% of global emissions.
How do clean countries manage their waste?
Figure 2 and Figure 3 represent the rank of the countries, from positions 1-10 (L-R) and 11-20 (L-R), respectively, that have adopted the best practices for a waste management system. For the evaluation, waste generation (including municipal, illegal, extremely polluting waste), recycling, incineration, and landfill were included— except composting organic waste.
The ranking was based on the overall environmental impact (level of CO2 emissions) resulting from each disposal method and the environmental impact of the chosen waste management system.
In most countries, solid waste management is typically operated by a local council, and nearly 70% of countries have established institutions that are responsible for policy development and regulatory oversight in the waste sector.
South Korea tops the list, although they send 46 kg per inhabitant waste to the landfill— that is considerably the highest amount of waste going to landfill among the top 10 list. Switzerland has the best record in a landfill. Denmark generates 845 kg of waste per inhabitant, which is the highest on the list although most of it is recycled, listing the country in the category of one of the best recyclers right after Germany.
Incineration in a controlled manner— having a better reputation than landfill, is being chosen by most countries as an option to sort out their waste. This brings the incineration numbers higher than recycling in all the countries except South Korea and Germany.
A similar result is observed in Figure 3 with the countries placed in the top 11-20 position (L-R). Belgium has landed on position 11 and the Czech Republic has closed the top 20 list. Australia has the highest amount of waste in landfill, although they also have the highest amount of waste generation after Ireland and France in Figure 3. Ireland has the best record of recycling and incineration, with 175 kg and 225 kg per inhabitant, respectively.
From the linear to the circular economy
The next question is how to turn “from cradle to grave” to “from cradle to cradle”? That means, how do we go from a linear economy to a circular economy?
To be able to think through the principle of the circular economy, we should not only focus on waste management but redesign the system so that it requires less material and energy, and additionally have the materials remain in the value chain for as long as possible through reusing and recycling at every stage.
One of the great ways to optimize the system is by measuring the environmental impact of the processes through a methodology called, Life Cycle Assessment by using commercial software, such as GaBi or SimaPro.
The software follows the standard procedure stated in ISO14000-44 and requires inventory analysis with data collection based on the amount of material and energy used at different processes.
The model carries out the impact assessment by calculating a user’s preferred categories, such as environmental impact, human toxicity, and freshwater scarcity of any given product. The result can then be interpreted to understand the ‘hot spots’ concerning energy use, and material use. With these values, we can redesign and optimize the system to have our emissions as low as possible.
Summary
Every year, the world generates about 2.01 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste
By 2050, the annual global waste is expected to reach 3.40 billion tonnes
Waste generation has an irreversible effect on the environment
Generating waste also means throwing away valuable materials while they are still functional
South Korea has topped the list of the cleanest country by properly managing its waste.
