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Posts Tagged ‘incineration’

The Problem with Incinerating Waste (and it’s not what you think)

November 14th, 2014

By Utilisateur Jyoccoz (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

While in Poland, we attended Poleko 2014, Poland’s largest environmental protection trade fair. I had meetings with many people around the subject of construction waste management. Europe in general and Germany in particular are known for its progressive waste management policies, so I wanted to find out what they do and how they do it.

Anyone involved in the waste sector, especially on a global level, already knows how they do it — the phrase “burn baby burn” comes to mind. Incineration is a big part of European waste management, whether you are in a Scandinavian country, Germany or Holland, all rely on incineration.

I spoke with Peter Meinlschmidt a physicist with the Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research about how Germany handles waste. He told me that all organic material (including plastic) is forbidden to go to landfill.