Circular economy approach means to increase the reuse of once acquired natural material in economy. Both environmental protection supporting initiatives and increasing awareness of pollution problematic is helping to increase recycled waste ratios. Main consumers in economy are Households and as result also main actor in generating waste. Literature analysis identifies the household role Sort a Source (SAS) as applicable approach, while limited information on recognized process components for household sorted waste habits with environmental impact assessment.

Challenges for efficient waste management:

1. Different implementations require different levels of household involvement in sorting processes for various sorted waste types.

2. Waste management is closely linked to infrastructure and introducing changes are both costly and lengthy, thus defining efficient processes is one of key long term aspects.

3. Various products sold have different lifecycle for their components (ex. Packaging vs actual product, more complex in case of replaceable parts), including recyclability, thus analysis of value chain has to be split to component lifecycle analysis (LCA) and recycling possibilities.

Keywords

Circular economy, Value chain activities, Waste management, Household and Sort-At-Source (SAS).

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Dr. Sanda Geipele