Potentials for the prevention of municipal solid waste Stefan Salhofer * , Gudrun Obersteiner, Felicitas Schneider, Sandra Lebersorger Institute of Waste Management, Department of Water, Atmosphere and Environment, BOKU – University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Muthgasse 107, 1190 Vienna, Austria Abstract Waste prevention has been assigned the highest priority under European waste management law. However, the initiatives which have been taken so far have not reduced the regular annual increase in total waste arising across Europe. The purpose of this paper is to quan- tify and analyze in depth the prevention potential for selected case studies (advertising material, beverage packaging, diapers, food waste, waste from events). Only such measures are considered, which do not require a reduction of consumption. The prevention potentials for household waste in theory are exemplified for the city of Vienna, also with a view to barriers that may reduce the achievable prevention potential. The results show that the prevention potentials for the analyzed individual measures can reach an order of magnitude of some 10% of the relevant waste stream (e.g., advertising material, beverage packaging), or rather 1–3% of municipal solid waste. The preven- tion potentials appear to be relatively small in relation to the total municipal waste quantities. Methodological shortcomings, such as the missing availability of basic data, make it difficult to exactly estimate the impact of waste prevention measures on waste quantities, which is only one of the effects of waste prevention among other ecological, social and economic aspects. 1. Introduction With a rising level of prosperity in industrialized coun- tries, an increasing number of products and services are being produced and consumed. This development is reflected in the amount of waste generated. Data from the past three decades show that the total amount of muni- cipal solid waste is continuously rising. Fig. 1 shows the quantities of household waste (without demolition waste) in a number of European countries. A rise of about 2– 3% each year can be seen (Beigl et al., 2003). According to the OECD (2004), the generation of municipal solid waste increased by approximately 54% in the OECD area between 1980 and 2000. Local communities are thus facing a growing waste bur- den that is becoming increasingly more difficult to manage. The problem here is not only the quantity of waste but also the quality, i.e., the intrinsic hazardous nature of some types of waste, especially industrial waste. Industry today in general uses a wider range of materials and produces more complex products than in past decades. There has also been an overall increase in the quantity and variety of products and services and a continuous creation of new products (Commission of the European Community, 2003a). In the past, various efforts were taken on both a national and international level to institutionalize waste minimiza- tion and waste prevention by setting legal guidelines to attain an effective waste prevention. The Council Directive of 15 July 1975 on waste (75/442/EEC) requested that the nine member states support appropriate actions for reduc- ing the quantities of certain wastes. Based on this directive, the first Community Strategy for Waste Management (SEC (89) 934 Final 1989) established the hierarchical system for waste management, under which waste prevention and minimization were given the highest priority, followed by recycling and disposal. This development was continued in the Community Strategy for Waste Management of 1996 (COM (96) 399) and in the Thematic Strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste (COM (2003) 301 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +43 1 3189900 319; fax: +43 1 3189900 350. E-mail address: Stefan.Salhofer@mail.boku.ac.at (S. Salhofer).