a photograph of radars

Sustainable material management in Flanders

Waste management, link in a sustainable material management

Managing the material chain as a whole is essential to find sustainable answers to the waste issue. Waste management focuses mainly on the end of life phase, the phase where material becomes waste.
However, it makes much more sense to regard the material chain as a whole, let's say from "cradle to grave" or even "from cradle to cradle". Present-day waste management shouldn't remain on its own, but has to broaden her horizon towards sustainable material management.

Sustainable material management, a societal necessity.

Sustainable material management is an evolution that is going on worldwide, it's an indispensable criterium for sustainable development in our society.

Materials are the backbone of our economy: they bear our production and consumption patterns. It's proved elaborately that those patterns have to change if we want to keep this planet viable, thus we cannot ignore materials. Material management has to become more sustainable. More specific: environmental pressure through material use and depletion of resources must be reduced, and quickly too. The consequences of the ever growing load on our environment become clearer every day.

We start to realise that the Flanders Region is dangerously dependant on resources which have become more scarce and thus expensive day by day. A necessary societal swing-round or 'transition' is needed. At the same time this transition offers some interesting opportunities to the Flanders Region.

It's going to be a challenge to come to a policy towards sustainable material management in a time of growing prosperity, a time where the goal is to have a growing economy with ever growing production and consumption on a world scale. And of course this transition should avoid exporting our environmental pressure. Also the worldwide dimension should be looked at.