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Concept
Resource recovery
Summary
Resource recovery is using wastes as an input material to create valuable products as new outputs. The aim is to reduce the amount of waste generated, thereby reducing the need for landfill space, and optimising the values created from waste. Resource recovery delays the need to use raw materials in the manufacturing process. Materials found in municipal solid waste, construction and demolition waste, commercial waste and industrial wastes can be used to recover resources for the manufacturing of new materials and products. Plastic, paper, aluminium, glass and metal are examples of where value can be found in waste.
Resource recovery goes further than just the management of waste. Resource recovery is part of a circular economy, in which the extraction of natural resources and generation of wastes are minimised, and in which materials and products are designed more sustainably for durability, reuse, repairability, remanufacturing and recycling. Life-cycle analysis (LCA) can be used to compare the resource recovery potential of different treatment technologies.
Resource recovery can also be an aim in the context of sanitation. Here, the term refers to approaches to recover the resources that are contained in wastewater and human excreta (urine and feces). The term "toilet resources" has come into use recently. Those resources include: nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), organic matter, energy and water. This concept is also referred to as ecological sanitation. Separation of waste flows can help make resource recovery simpler. Examples include keeping urine separate from feces (as in urine diversion toilets) and keeping greywater and blackwater separate.
Resource recovery can be enabled by changes in government policy and regulation, circular economy infrastructure such as improved 'binfrastructure' to promote source separation and waste collection, reuse and recycling, innovative circular business models, and valuing materials and products in terms of their economic but also their social and environmental costs and benefits.
Official source
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