Abstract
Industrialization, increasingly crowded cities, and the change in consumption habits have caused municipal waste to be an important part of sustainable development. In this study, the practices of EU countries regarding municipal waste management were evaluated using clustering and data envelopment analysis (DEA). The data set for 2019 was collected from Eurostat and eight variables were identified for the analyses. In the first stage, 28 EU countries were divided into four groups using eight variables and EM algorithm. In the second stage, the efficiency scores of the 28 EU countries' recovery and recycling practices were calculated using DEA. A single input and three outputs were determined for the DEA, and the overall, technical, and scale efficiency values were determined using the output-oriented DEA models. The findings show that countries that are efficient in terms of recovery and recycling practices are in the first and second clusters.
TopIntroduction
Sustainable development is a concept that is at the center of our age, both to understand the environment and to solve global problems. The focus of the concept of sustainable development is the earth, which is getting more crowded day by day. In 2021, the world population is around 7.7 billion. That is 9.5 times more than the estimated 800 million people who lived in 1750 at the start of the Industrial Revolution. (Sachs, 2015, p. 1, Worldometer, 2021). The world population is expected to reach 10.9 billion in 2100 (United Nations, 2021).
The United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972 emphasized the importance of environmental protection for sustainable development (Rogers et al., 2008:9). In 1983, a major study was started by the World Commission on Environment and Development, which made sustainable development recognized as the most important concept and practice of our time (Blewitt, 2018, p. 11). In 1987, the result of this study was published as Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report (Elliott, 2013, p. 8). In the report, the concept of sustainable development ensured a perspective for the integration of environmental policies and development strategies (WCED, 1987).
The next important evolution for the concept of sustainable development was the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, also known as the Earth Summit (Jansen, 2003, p. 231). The other steps Millennium Summit (2000), World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002) and United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (2012) taken in the following years and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. This was also an urgent call to action by all developed and developing countries for a global partnership (United Nations, 2021).
12th of the Vision 2030 Goals is “Responsible Consumption and Production”. The main target of this goal is to reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse by 2030 (United Nations, 2021). In parallel with this aim, in the report published by the European Environment Agency in 2013, the main objectives and goals of the EU environmental policy for the period 2010-2050 were explained. In the report, it is stated that the aim of the EU waste policy is to contribute to a sustainable economy by providing as much resources from waste as possible. While only 38% of waste is recycled in the EU, five tons of waste is generated each year by an average European. In some EU countries, more than 60% of household waste still goes to landfill (European Commission, 2021).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Recycling of Waste: It refers to the process of collecting and processing wastes that can be reused and transformed into new products.
Waste Disposal: It refers to any non-recovery operation or the destroying of waste generated from agricultural, domestic, and industrial products.
Waste Treatment: It refers to the necessary practices to minimize the negative effects of waste on the environment.
Recovery of Waste: It is defined as any waste management process that results in a particular product that has an economic or ecological benefit for a waste material.
Sustainable Development: It is the optimum consumption of natural resources by establishing a balance between human and nature and ensuring economic development by taking into account the needs of future generations.
Municipal Waste: It consists of originating from households or similar in content or structure commercial, industrial and institutional wastes collected by or on behalf of municipalities.
Landfill: It is the conventional landfill of solid waste that is widely used as it is the least costly of disposal methods such as incineration or composting.