13 July 2020

Improved waste separation in high-rise buildings

In recent decades, the Netherlands’ major cities have grown significantly. This growth is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. Despite this expansion, every city faces the challenge of reducing its impact on the environment and the climate. An important strategy with which to achieve this goal is transitioning towards a circular economy by using more waste as raw materials.

For major cities, a key issue is that residents living in high-rise buildings do not separate their waste properly. The residual waste streams still contain too many raw materials that cannot be recycled in a sufficiently qualitative manner through subsequent separation. Among other things, this is due to a lack of (storage) space in and around the home, communal waste bins without ownership and a general lack of social cohesion and control.

Robbert Loos (Director DWMA):

"It is wonderful to see that increasing and improving the collection of organic waste is also possible in high-rise buildings!"

Effective instruments to improve the source separation of organic waste

The objective of the project Improved waste separation high-rise buildings is to find effective instruments that cities can use to improve the source separation of organic waste in urban regions with many high-rise buildings. One of the key results of this project is a menu that presents a range of interventions that have been tested in practice and which are designed to bring the realisation of the Netherlands’ waste separation target closer.