The purpose of this report is to increase the awareness about the problem that occur when the waste hierarchy is applied to management of contaminated land. The work with remediation of contaminated land in Sweden is part of the efforts towards reaching the national environmental objectives. Therefore a subsidiary aim is to analyze how this influences the prospects of reaching the objectives. The work consists of two parts; a case study and a comparative literature study that focus on England, the Netherlands and Sweden. The case study is intended to provide a practical perspective through a comparison of the climate impact from two methods. One of the methods does not take into account the waste hierarchy and the other is considered, by the principal, to do so. The calculation has been translated to carbon dioxide equivalents through the tool Carbon footprint from the Swedish Geotechnical Society. The literature study has focused on the national legislation connected to contaminated land within the respective countries with the purpose to see how they work with this and identify potential lessons that can be drawn from this comparison. A problem that is made visible through this study is that the waste hierarchy is not sufficiently implemented in the instruments used in Sweden. Landfill tax contribution to the compliance of the waste hierarchy is in the current situation, regarding contaminated soil, nonexistent. But the results of the literature study shows that there is potential for using landfill tax to implement the waste hierarchy in an efficient way. Lessons can be drawn from England, which has increased the accuracy of their landfill tax with two rates, depending on the waste type, and the fact that they have reversed their earlier exemption for contaminated soil. An experience from the case study is that there is a problem within the terminology connected to remediation and waste management in Sweden. The companies and the authorities do not agree about significant terms, for example the reuse and recycling of contaminated soil. This causes problems because the dissidence concerns the options under the hierarchy that should be prioritized.The case study shows that the climate impact from a remediation project can vary substantially between different methods. It would be more efficient if other environmental objectives such as reduced climate impact could be given more weigh in the method selection process than it does in the present situation. This would minimize the risks that a project has a negative impact on the work towards other environmental targets.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:miun-19468 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Eriksson Nordbäck, Frida |
| Publisher | Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för teknik och hållbar utveckling |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
Page generated in 0.0017 seconds