J. Paterson & D. Thomas
Background
Environmental pollution from man-made waste materials represents one of the most severe threats to our planet. Evidence of the accumulation of waste materials in the oceans has awakened populations and Governments to the threat posed by continuing with our current systems. The need for change is unquestioned, however, what form that change must take has not been defined.
Defining the problem
Although much progress has been made in developing less environmentally damaging product waste, e.g. recyclable packaging materials, this alone is not been enough to affect the needed reduction in waste. Waste in the environment is from failures in the end-life processing of products. Broadly these can be split into two categories
1. Inadequate disposal: Where the waste items from a consumer product are incorrectly disposed of either through not entering the waste stream or through entering in the wrong channel for a particular item.
2. Inadequate processing: Where waste has been disposed of correctly, but the processes have flaws or where the waste was disposed of into the wrong channel and the processing cannot redress this flawed entry.
