White Paper on Sustainability of Spanish Urban Planning -- 5.1 Manage waste to reduce its impact

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White Paper on Sustainability of Spanish Urban Planning
José Fariña Tojo, José Manuel Naredo (directors)

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5.1 Manage waste to reduce its impact

This section deals not only with the generic issue of waste management, but also with generally reducing pollution and the uncontrolled dumping of waste. Waste management covers everything from legislation on packaging, to compliance with requirements for the distribution of plastic bags in shops.

5.11. Make hazardous-waste treatment compulsory
The issue of hazardous waste is thoroughly dealt with in both state and regional legislation, especially where it poses a specific risk to public health. In fact, all references to hazardous waste have also been considered. This principle quite clearly illustrates the differences between local and global sustainability (local sustainability usually embraces purely environmental issues). One example is waste that produces greenhouse gases and which, if left uncontrolled, has an effect on the sustainability of the whole planet, while groundwater-level pollution, for example, has a much clearer effect on local sustainability. In general, issues relating to local sustainability, which in most cases can be included under the umbrella of environmental issues, tend to be resolved by diverting them to other places. This is usually the case with the most developed countries as these have the economic means to buy dumping sites and sewerage systems in poorer areas.

5.12. Management of building and demolition waste
This issue is closely related to criterion 4.2 (minimising the impact of building materials) and the relevant points have been analysed accordingly. The moment construction of a new city seems to slow and be substituted by the redevelopment of existing urban spaces, the problem that arises is no longer that of how to accommodate the large quantities of earth generated by construction sites, but that of waste from the demolition of parts of buildings (or even whole buildings in the case of renovation work) and for which the question of recycling of materials has not been considered during construction.

5.13. Build environmentally non-aggressive treatment systems
In many cases, the purification systems that are used do not correspond to global sustainability criteria but local ones. Sometimes, they do not respond even to local sustainability issues, as their effects can be too aggressive. In any case, any reference to appropriate purification systems has been included under this principle.

5.14. Reduce pollutant emissions and dumping
In this case it has also been deemed necessary to include a more general (though somewhat miscellaneous) principle under which we may consider all articles of legislation referring to waste management that do not fit with any of the other points. Furthermore, not only those that are relevant to reducing pollution, but also to improving the quality of the environment in general.

Discussion

The compulsory treatment of hazardous waste has been dealt with in a general way in state legislation, with all territories within the Spanish state being obliged to comply; therefore, some communities have not provided legislation for this due to their being covered by existing legislation. Some regions, however, have broadened the scope of state legislation (which is minimal) or have adapted it to include aspects that are relevant to their territory. The principle entitled reduce pollutant emissions and dumping combines the greatest number of references as a matter of course. The principle on building environmentally non-aggressive treatment systems is the one which has been considered the least, although it does not include a great deal of references to waste generated by building and demolition. It could be said that this is a rather clichéd issue of local sustainability and therefore not many people question its inclusion in the regulations. The difference between environmental clichés and those relating to sustainability becomes apparent if we recount the number of references to each. A society that defines wellbeing in terms of comfort and convenience obviously resists anything that might lower its current state for the sake of the hypothetical sustainability of the planet, so any environmental issues that are understood to improve local conditions in general are well received.