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Outside Europe, there are further deposit and return systems. In the USA, for
instance,containerdeposit laws,knownasbottlebills,arecurrently implementedin
ten states. They require a minimum refundable deposit on beverage containers
(usually 5 or 10 cents) in order to promote a high rate of recycling or reuse to
reduce waste and prevent littering. By the bottle bills, the refund value of the
container provides amonetary incentive to return the container for recycling (see
http://www.bottlebill.org/).
Many countries have implemented waste management plans or schemes to
prevent and reduce waste production, recover through reuse and recycling, and
properlydispose thewaste.Thishelps topreventenvironmentalpollutionincluding
the pollutionof freshwater systems.
The Flanders PublicWasteAgency (OVAM), developing andmonitoring leg-
islation and policies regardingwaste management and soil remediation, initiated
measures that included promoting source separation, subsidizing the construction
of recycling and composting facilities, and discouragingwaste. Hence, Flanders,
theFlemishregionofBelgium,reused, recycled,orcompostedalmost three-fourths
of the residentialwaste produced in this region and has alsomanaged to stabilize
waste generation [45]. Furthermore, within the framework of the FlemishWaste
Regulation, general regulations that prohibit any kind of littering have been
implemented.
The Luxembourgian Waste Management Plan [46] aims at preventing and
reducing waste production and pollution from waste; recovering through reuse,
recycling, and other environmentally appropriate methods; as well as disposing
finalwaste in an environmentally and economically appropriateway. It set quan-
titative targets for recovery and recycling includingpackagingwaste. It states that
“[o]ther avoided emissions include the benefits of recycling of food and garden
waste,paper,glass,metals,plastics, textilesandwoodinthemunicipalsolidwaste”
[47, p. 10].
Regulation instruments do not only address the end (i.e., waste) but also at the
beginningofproduct life orproduct design. For instance, theUK’sThePackaging
(EssentialRequirements)Regulations 2003 [48] urge themanufacturer to produce
the packaging that its “volume and weight be limited to the minimum adequate
amount tomaintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptance for the
packedproductandfor theconsumer”andtodesign theirproducts insuchawayso
as topermit its reuseandrecoveryandtominimize itsenvironmental impactduring
the packaging waste disposal. Furthermore, the “Packaging shall be so
manufactured that the presence of noxious and other hazardous substances and
materials as constituents of the packaging material or of any of the packaging
components isminimisedwithregardto theirpresenceinemissions,ashor leachate
when packaging or residues frommanagement operations or packagingwaste are
incineratedor landfilled” [48, p. 7].
In the USA, for instance, the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 [49],
amending theFederal Food,Drug, andCosmeticAct, prohibits “Themanufacture
or the introductionordelivery for introduction into interstate commerceof a rinse-
off cosmetic that contains intentionally-added plasticmicrobeads.”Here a plastic
254 N.Brennholt et al.
Freshwater Microplastics
Emerging Environmental Contaminants?
- Titel
- Freshwater Microplastics
- Untertitel
- Emerging Environmental Contaminants?
- Autoren
- Martin Wagner
- Scott Lambert
- Verlag
- Springer Open
- Datum
- 2018
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-319-61615-5
- Abmessungen
- 15.5 x 24.1 cm
- Seiten
- 316
- Kategorien
- Naturwissenschaften Chemie