Progress of waste management in achieving UK’s net-zero goal

Zeinab Zandieh*, Patricia Thornley, Katie Chong

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

The net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions strategy aims to avoid emissions from all economic sectors by 2050. Although the reduction of GHGs has been considered an urgent issue in all industrial divisions, there are still gaps in climate change mitigation strategies and policies in other sectors, such as waste, accounting for 3–5% of GHG emissions generation which are emitted from landfills, waste transport, waste treatment processes, and incinerators (Clark et al. in Nat Clim Chang 6:360–369, 2016; Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai AP, Connors C P, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R., and Matthews TKM, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds) (2021) Climate Change 2021: the physical science basis. editor, contribution of working group I to the sixth assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;). Waste management is a worldwide issue related to the circular economy. The share of the waste sector in the UK for GHG emissions generation is 3.7% in 2021, and landfills are responsible for 70% of the emissions (Rogelj et al. in Nat Clim Chang 591:365–368, 2021). Therefore, a new approach to waste management and disposal strategies is crucial. This paper reviews the key elements and challenges involved in waste management systems, specifically in the UK, including policy and legislation, infrastructure, and technological advancements. The review offers a clear summary of the application of circularity waste management strategies, focusing on the UK’s goal to achieve the net-zero target. This review found that to reach the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 2050 net-zero goals, the existing waste management hierarchy is no longer appropriate for the global and national setting. The metrics in waste management in the context of the circular economy should be aligned with the optimization of using resources, waste minimization, and increasing product life cycle by considering environmental impacts. Therefore, the circular model can be deployed instead of the hierarchy concepts.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2601-2619
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Material Cycles and Waste Management
Volume26
Issue number5
Early online date12 Jul 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2024

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Data Access Statement

No data were used for the review study described in the article.

Keywords

  • Waste management
  • Sustainability development goals (SDGs)
  • Environmental pollution
  • Waste metrics
  • Net-zero 2050
  • Circular economy

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