Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of substances contained in waste materials. Industrial plants for waste incineration are commonly referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Incineration and other high-temperature waste treatment systems are described as "thermal treatment". Incineration of waste materials converts the waste into ash, flue gas and heat. The ash is mostly formed by the inorganic constituents of the waste and may take the form of solid lumps or particulates carried by the flue gas. The flue gases must be cleaned of gaseous and particulate pollutants before they are dispersed into the atmosphere. In some cases, the heat that is generated by incineration can be used to generate electric power.
As of 1 January 2023, there are 342 municipalities and three special municipalities in the Netherlands. The latter is the status of three of the six island territories that make up the Dutch Caribbean. Municipalities are the second-level administrative division, or public bodies, in the Netherlands and are subdivisions of their respective provinces. Their duties are delegated to them by the central government and they are ruled by a municipal council that is elected every four years. Municipal mergers have reduced the total number of municipalities by two-thirds since the first official boundaries were created in the mid 19th century. Municipalities themselves are informally subdivided into districts and neighbourhoods for administrative and statistical purposes.
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. The word litter can also be used as a verb: to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles on the ground, and leave them there indefinitely or for other people to dispose of as opposed to disposing of them correctly.
Illegal dumping, also called fly dumping or fly tipping (UK), is the dumping of waste illegally instead of using an authorized method such as curbside collection or using an authorized rubbish dump. It is the illegal deposit of any waste onto land, including waste dumped or tipped on a site with no license to accept waste. The United States Environmental Protection Agency developed a “profile” of the typical illegal dumper. Characteristics of offenders include local residents, construction and landscaping contractors, waste removers, scrap yard operators, and automobile and tire repair shops.
Glass recycling is the processing of waste glass into usable products. Glass that is crushed or imploded and ready to be remelted is called cullet. There are two types of cullet: internal and external. Internal cullet is composed of defective products detected and rejected by a quality control process during the industrial process of glass manufacturing, transition phases of product changes and production offcuts. External cullet is waste glass that has been collected or reprocessed with the purpose of recycling. External cullet is classified as waste. The word "cullet", when used in the context of end-of-waste, will always refer to external cullet.
Taxation in the Netherlands is defined by the income tax, the wage withholding tax, the value added tax and the corporate tax.
Waste minimisation is a set of processes and practices intended to reduce the amount of waste produced. By reducing or eliminating the generation of harmful and persistent wastes, waste minimisation supports efforts to promote a more sustainable society. Waste minimisation involves redesigning products and processes and/or changing societal patterns of consumption and production.
California Redemption Value (CRV), also known as California Refund Value, is a regulatory fee paid on recyclable beverage containers in the U.S. state of California. The fee was established by the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act of 1986 and further extended to additional beverage types in California State Senate Bill No. 1013, signed into law on September 28, 2022 and taking effect on January 1, 2024; since 2010 the program has been administered by the Cal/EPA California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle).
Waste diversion or landfill diversion is the process of diverting waste from landfills. The success of landfill diversion can be measured by comparison of the size of the landfill from one year to the next. If the landfill grows minimally or remains the same, then policies covering landfill diversion are successful. For example, currently in the United States there are 3000 landfills. A measure of the success of landfill diversion would be if that number remains the same or is reduced. In 2015 it was recorded that the national average of landfill diversion in the United States was 33.8%, while San Francisco had implemented the most effective policies and had recorded a landfill diversion rate of 77%.
In the Netherlands, coffeeshops are establishments where the sale of cannabis for personal consumption by the public is tolerated by the local authorities.
Food loss and waste is food that is not eaten. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about one-third of the world's food is thrown away. A 2021 meta-analysis that did not include food lost during production, by the United Nations Environment Programme found that food waste was a challenge in all countries at all levels of economic development. The analysis estimated that global food waste was 931 million tonnes of food waste across three sectors: 61 percent from households, 26 percent from food service and 13 percent from retail.
Recycling in the Netherlands is under the responsibility of local authorities. Different localities implement different systems. Municipalities all over the country publish a calendar, on a yearly basis, of the pickup dates and the addresses of the waste separation and recycling stations.
Netherlands benefits from a strategic geographic location, a world-class economy, a stable political climate, and a skilled workforce. The Netherlands has a large network of tax treaties, a low corporate income tax rate and a full participation exemption for capital gains and profits. These characteristics, in addition to a favorable tax environment, make Netherlands one of the most open economies in the world for multinational corporations (MNCs).
The Tennessee Bottle Bill is citizen-supported container-deposit recycling legislation, which if enacted will place a 5-cent deposit on beverage containers sold in Tennessee. The bill applies to containers made of aluminum/bimetal, glass or any plastic, containing soft drinks, beer/malt beverages, carbonated or non-carbonated waters, plain or flavored waters, energy drinks, juices, iced teas or iced coffees. Milk/dairy, nutritional drinks and wine and spirits are not included in the program.
Solid waste policy in the United States is aimed at developing and implementing proper mechanisms to effectively manage solid waste. For solid waste policy to be effective, inputs should come from stakeholders, including citizens, businesses, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, universities, and other research organizations. These inputs form the basis of policy frameworks that influence solid waste management decisions. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates household, industrial, manufacturing, and commercial solid and hazardous wastes under the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Effective solid waste management is a cooperative effort involving federal, state, regional, and local entities. Thus, the RCRA's Solid Waste program section D encourages the environmental departments of each state to develop comprehensive plans to manage nonhazardous industrial and municipal solid waste.
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are categorized by size into micro-, meso-, or macro debris. Plastics are inexpensive and durable, making them very adaptable for different uses; as a result, manufacturers choose to use plastic over other materials. However, the chemical structure of most plastics renders them resistant to many natural processes of degradation and as a result they are slow to degrade. Together, these two factors allow large volumes of plastic to enter the environment as mismanaged waste and for it to persist in the ecosystem.
There are various issues of waste management in Thailand, including excessive plastic use, industrial waste, among others.
Packaging waste, the part of the waste that consists of packaging and packaging material, is a major part of the total global waste, and the major part of the packaging waste consists of single-use plastic food packaging, a hallmark of throwaway culture. Notable examples for which the need for regulation was recognized early, are "containers of liquids for human consumption", i.e. plastic bottles and the like. In Europe, the Germans top the list of packaging waste producers with more than 220 kilos of packaging per capita.
Climate change in the Netherlands is already affecting the country. The average temperature in the Netherlands rose by more than 2 °C from 1901 to 2020. Climate change has resulted in increased frequency of droughts and heatwaves. Because significant portions of the Netherlands have been reclaimed from the sea or otherwise are very near sea level, the Netherlands is very vulnerable to sea level rise.
Songül Mutluer is a Dutch politician, serving as a member of the House of Representatives since 2022. She is a member of the Labour Party (PvdA) and has served as a Zaanstad municipal council member and alderwoman for fifteen years before. Having studied law, Mutluer has also worked as a legal professional and taught law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
