Cities consume increasing amounts of natural resources, produce astronomically high amount of waste and emissions, thereby impacting on the regional and global environment. Air and water pollution and waste are the main environmental problems in most cities. Cities utilize large inputs of resources, including water, energy, food, and a wide range of raw materials, resulting in large quantities of waste, indicating a huge loss of natural resources in the form of raw materials. Urban ecosystems are characterized by a very high energy consumption and large amounts of solid waste to be discarded, incinerated, or treated in other manner. This way, they represent landscape degradation factor and adversely affect the quality of water resources, land, and urban air.
About 90% of the waste produced in South Africa is still being disposed in landfills. South Africa is experiencing severe constraints with regards to the availability of landfill space, as well as challenges in operating and decommissioning landfills in a manner that is compliant with licensing conditions.
To that end, there is need to transform from a linear to a circular waste economy via resources optimization and through building a secondary resources economy around the beneficiation of waste.
The circular economy is defined by the Ellen MacAthur Foundation as one which always maintains products, components and materials at their optimal efficiency and value, thus it is restorative and regenerative by design. Circular economy promotes viewing waste as a resource, where its value is always recognised and maintained, thus being kept in the cycle. In this way, material is always useful in whatever form rather than being discarded when it becomes “waste”.
South Africa is still in its infancy regarding the implementation of a circular economy when compared to other countries around the world. To achieve a circular waste economy there is a need in conducting a market assessment and research in determining which waste streams have a high potential for circularity in the South African context. Assessments conducted as part of this study such as the Market Assessment and Research analysis and Life Cycle assessment are good tools for policy and decision making.
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