Following societal waste management models and trends

By Ann-Christin Pålsson & Ellen Riise

For the SCA personal care business, societal waste management models and trends is mapped to understand the consumers’ needs and problems regarding waste management, and find ways to facilitate waste management for the consumers and reduce the overall environmental impact from waste management.

In the work, information are collected and compiled about how the products (e.g. diapers, feminine pads etc.) behave in different waste management systems, both from collection perspective and technical treatments options. Based on this information, political trends and new waste management research, future scenarios are developed as to how the future waste management systems in different markets may look like. The scenarios are used as input to product development, for aiding the design of products that are better adapted to current and future waste management systems.

The information is collected from a variety of sources, such as:

• trade organisations, e.g. EDANA, ECM (European Compost Network), CEWEP (Confederation of European waste to energy plants),
• EU and OECD statistics
• consumer organisations
• non-governmental organisations (NGO)
• networks within SCA
• internal research and projects with focus on waste management