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The original principles of the hierarchy of resource use seem to have been forgotten. The purpose of this paper is to address the necessity of these principles in order for a circular economy (CE) to be sustainable.

This is a general review paper explaining today’s shortcomings in a CE and in the waste hierarchy. Its theoretical contribution is illustrated using the example of marine plastic waste in the Arctic, as well as the EU’s action plan for a CE: “Closing the loop”.

There is a need to reduce raw materials into the economy directly and not only as a potential result of recycling. This is supported theoretically and by illustrating that the EU’s action plan is closing the loop primarily from the output side.

The theoretical possibility of complete recycling rests on a premise that is now at odds with a sustainable development.

The power of existing raw material production cycles must be challenged to allow reduction to be a real option. If not, a CE may exacerbate a moral trade-off by the current generation reducing the safe operating space of future living beings.

The theoretical possibility of recycling everything, also known as the technology-optimist view, has played the role of a safety net for humanity. As we are now exceeding planetary boundaries for a safe and just space for humanity, this theoretical safety net is no longer valid. Instead, we must reinforce the basic principles of the hierarchy of resource use.

The Waste Management Hierarchy is a well-established framework for conceptualizing the spectrum of desirable behaviours to manage, reduce and avoid waste. To date, research relating to the householder behaviours on the Waste Management Hierarchy has primarily focused on the lower order disposal and recycling behaviours, reflecting the areas of historical policy attention. Recently, however, policy focus has shifted to ‘higher order’ behaviours such as reuse and avoidance, in line with Circular Economy thinking. To address the measurement gap, this chapter develops and tests a battery of householder waste behaviour measures across the entire waste hierarchy. The battery was piloted with 573 South Australian householders, where the ‘higher’ order waste behaviours are more likely to be displayed as the Waste Hierarchy has been embedded in waste policy directives for many years. Findings empirically validate the Waste Management Hierarchy, deliver a quantified benchmark of the prevalence of behaviours across its spectrum and explore the underlying motives driving pro-environmental behaviour.

Rising energy costs and potential scarcity are driving energy reduction initiatives in manufacturing companies. The reduction in energy use is complementary to the classic lean production philosophy and the lean and green literature implies that reducing energy waste supports lean objectives. The purpose of this paper is to examine this perceived positive correlation and identify the impact level of energy reduction of lean product flow.

To achieve this, published case studies and practices from interview were gathered and categorised against a waste management hierarchy.

Energy reduction activities implicitly reduce waste which is compatible with the lean waste objective, however, when applying the waste hierarchy principle to energy efficiency practice, lean product flow is progressively constrained or compromised towards the lower levels of the hierarchy.

The hierarchical classification seeks to communicate how reported energy efficiency improvements will/will not impact on flow. The research focuses on the modification of existing discrete part production facilities towards greater energy efficiency and neglects alternative production technologies and new build. The results suggest that as manufacturers seeking to be more energy efficient move away from preventative actions to more reduce and reuse actions then production flexibility could become restricted and the design of production facilities make re-think the fast, linear and short flow of product.

Examples of industrial practices are provided to show the implications of energy reduction practice on production flow.

Categorises the relationship between classic lean and industrial low-energy initiatives to provide insight to how higher energy cost could impact on production.

The purpose of this paper is to provide suitable solutions to the management system of the municipal solid waste in an Algerian city.

The adopted approach focussed on the evaluation of different methods concerning the Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM), by analyzing methods of solid waste management hierarchy which constitutes appropriate tools in the MSWM.

One pillar of sustainable solid waste management is strategic planning, and links to guidance are provided. Another pillar is cost analysis of solid waste options, and links to useful analytical tools are also provided.

This research has limitations that the paper plans to study in perspective: assessment of citizen perception of waste and its practical implications in the management of municipal solid waste as well as involvements of other agents or structures.

Results investigations conducted in this study allows to the municipality for solving city problems of MSW with priority to the environmental and public health protection.

The interest is carried, here, with the success of the different methods concerning the solid waste management hierarchy, which conditions mainly the success of the improvement of the waste management system.

To examine and create an ideal pathway model that can implement aiming to change the current improper practices in managing municipal solid waste (MSW) to sustainable practices. To acquire a better understanding of public participation and community culture helps in achieving the aim of reducing the amount of waste generation, sending less waste to landfill sites and encouraging the reuse and recycling of materials instead. To help students whom the awareness in the community regarding the importance of protecting the environment and acting in a civilization way has increased. To improve the MSW sustainability practices and enhance the waste sustainability practices together with energy and material conservation. To have more extensive knowledge and awareness of issues in waste management and some of the dilemmas managers of strategic and operations face.

Abu Dhabi’s center of waste management is known as Tadweer is a governmental entity under the Abu Dhabi Executive Council. Tadweer is responsible for managing every MSWs includes collecting, transferring, segregating, treating, recycling, reusing and tracking all kinds of wastes. CEO of Tadweer Dr Salem Alkabi called his team that manages various departments such as strategy, operations, projects and licensing. The meeting was to discuss Tadweer’s future directing and strategy for mismanagement of solid waste dumping into landfills in Abu Dhabi. Dumping in landfills is the main challenge Tadweer faced. Mr. Abdulrahman Albloushi’s strategy and business development executive director of Tadweer highlighted to Alkaabi how Tadweer could improve the waste management practices to make it more sustainable. Furthermore, assisting the center gets more benefit from the waste s instead of losing this valuable waste into landfills. Consequently, Mr. Abdulrahman must grapple with some difficult questions: how much the effectiveness in collecting waste from where it generated and removing it out-of-sight?

This case study is designed for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and executive MBA students of business management programs, especially for waste management, environmental management and strategic management courses.

Teaching Notes are available upon request.

CSS 4: Environmental management.

In moving towards sustainable wastes management, the UK Government has adopted a wastes hierarchy. This hierarchy sets out clearly the priorities for sustainable resource use and wastes management: it ought to be the guiding principle of private and public policy, with the emphasis placed strongly on reducing the amount of raw material used. The House of Commons Environment, Transport & Regional Affairs Committee has noted a pressing need to promote wastes minimisation within industrial and commercial sectors and has recommended the introduction of penalties and incentives to encourage industrial wastes minimisation. Despite this, in the food and retailing sector only around 25 per cent of companies were found to operate wastes minimisation programmes. This paper aims to demonstrate the benefits of wastes minimisation, in both financial and environmental terms, for the food and drink sector. Large multiprocess food and drink companies have found they can make annual savings of greater than one per cent of turnover by implementing wastes minimisation strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodological approach to support qualitative analysis of waste flows in food supply chains. The methodological framework introduced allows the identification of circular food waste flows that can maximise the sustainability of food supply chains.

Following a qualitative approach, circular economy perspectives are combined with core industrial ecology concepts in the specification of a standardised analytical method to map food waste flows and industrial synergies across a supply chain.

The mapped waste flows and industrial linkages depict two time-related scenarios: (1) current scenarios showing the status quo of existing food waste flows, and (2) future scenarios pointing out circular flows along the supply chain. The future scenarios inform potential alternatives to take waste flows up the food waste hierarchy.

The qualitative approach does not allow generalisations of findings out of the scope of the study. The framework is intended for providing focussed analysis, case by case. Future research involving mixed methods where quantitative approaches complement the qualitative perspectives of the framework would expand the analytical perspective.

The framework provides a relatively low-cost and pragmatic method to identify alternatives to minimise landfill disposals and improve the sustainability of food supply chains. Its phased methodology and standardised outcomes serve as a referential basis to inform not only comparative analysis, but also policymaking and strategic decisions aimed at transforming linear food supply chains into circular economy ecosystems.

The zero-waste term in municipal solid waste management has been the utopian objective of every waste management authority in the cities in developing countries, even though it comes with different perceptions, which are sometimes misguided. People can produce no waste unless they live with no consumption. The zero-waste term does not mean that we produce no waste, rather we dump no waste at the landfill site. It means we dispose of nothing at a landfill site since the issue of landfill site can be a culprit of waste management, for its reiterating city land demands that generate “headaches” to city authority because of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard issue). No one accepts living voluntarily next to a landfill site as it creates more harm than harmless. With zero waste at the landfill site in mind, the waste management authority attempts to deal with the complexity of municipal solid waste management, by reviving each element of the waste management stakeholders to concertedly move on to deal with waste. Individual households and communities, without which waste management will not be successful, were positioned as the main thrust of waste management. A multipronged approach was implemented with all stakeholders, i.e., lawmakers, regulators, waste producers, implementers, and pressure groups, appearing with different functions but a common point: zero waste at the landfill site. A stakeholder with a large capacity, i.e., local government focuses on creating a large project that has a large impact on overall waste management; private sectors may contribute to establishing recycling centers, and waste-to-energy projects. Meanwhile, the individual households, which are large in number but have a small capacity, establish community-based activities, i.e., waste banks. This chapter attempts to provide the overall picture of municipal solid waste management in 14 cities in developing countries toward their goal of zero waste at landfill sites.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify and analyse existing resource efficiency (RE) and resource effectiveness measures and indicators (REMIs); and second, to identify gaps and develop a new indicator of “operational resource effectiveness” (ORE_ft) suitable for manufacturing units.

Research methodology consists of three stages: gap identification, development and testing. Through review of academic literature, 40 REMIs are identified and analysed. A survey of manufacturers is carried out to validate the hypothesis and seek inputs on the development of the new indicator. The proposed indicator is tested by comparing ORE_ft index of two manufacturing units with each other, with resource intensity per unit (RIPU), waste intensity per unit (WIPU) and with four other REMIs.

Analysis of 40 REMIs clearly points towards the absence of a hypothesised REMI. In total, 78 per cent of manufacturers surveyed in north England substantiate the hypothesis. Inverse correlation established between the proposed ORE_ft indicator, RIPU, WIPU and other comparisons is likely to validate the output generated by the proposed indicator.

Testing of this indicator is limited to two dissimilar manufacturing units that shared data.

The proposed indicator is useful for comparing the operational resource effectiveness of individual factories over a period as well as with other factories. RIPU and WIPU captured in this indicator also represent operational RE that can be used to initiate improvement action.

Inclusion of both, the resource consumption and the waste generation along with discount/multiplying factors that capture the circularity aspects is likely to be the distinguishing feature of this indicator.

The purpose of this paper is to show that organizational change depends on societal narratives – narratives about the character, history, or envisioned future of societies.

A case study of a Swedish municipal waste management company serves as an illustration.

Swedish waste governance is powered by two main narratives: “less landfilling” and “wasting less”. Less landfilling has been the dominant narrative for several decades, but wasting less is gaining momentum, and a new narrative order is establishing itself. This new narrative order significantly redefines the socio‐material status of waste and imposes major changes on waste management organizations.

Based on the case of waste governance in Sweden, the authors conclude that organizations should be aware that societal narrative affects the legitimacy and nature of their operations; therefore, they must integrate a watch for narrative change in their strategic reflections.

This paper establishes the relevance of the notion of societal narrative to understand organizational change.