§ 1.1 Scale and Focus of Materials and Waste sub-system

What are the scale and focus of the unsustainabilities in the sub-system you aim to overcome?

The geographical scope of this research includes the complete island since waste of materials can be found in every corner of the island. The waste comes from households, industries and all type of businesses spread over Texel. The traditional tourism produces large amounts of waste, similar to other unsustainable industries (Huang, Ouyang, Zheng, Zhang, & Wang, 2008). The waste is not only thrown in bins, but also in the free nature. The waste on the beaches have to be cleaned in time before the materials end up in the water. Especially plastics endanger the marine life: animals get caught in it or see it as food . The current initiative MyBeach focusses on that problem and has the goal to get a 100% waste free beach (MyBeach). To cover the complete system of waste, the analysis will be conducted at different scales. Improvements can be made on different levels and therefore all have to be analysed. This includes the island level, household level and product level.

The aim of this project is to reduce the material metabolism of Texel. The focus is twofold: on the one hand it considers reduction of the current waste and on the other hand it focuses on making the remaining waste streams more sustainable.  Besides technologically driven changes, this can be achieved by, for example, recycling and re-use. According to Manfred Lenzen, these solutions focused on islands have received little attention so far (Lenzen, 2008). He claims that conservation, efficiency and reduction of the material metabolism of an island can be as effective as technologically driven changes. According to Huang et al., the control (with legislation) of the import of environmental-risk resources and export of scarce resources also have to be included (Huang, Ouyang, Zheng, Zhang, & Wang, 2008).

Bibliography

Huang, B., Ouyang, Z., Zheng, H., Zhang, H., & Wang, X. (2008). Construction of an eco-island: A case
          study of Chongming Island, China. Ocean & Coastal Management, 575-588.
Lenzen, M. (2008). Sustainable island businesses: a case study of Norfolk Island. Cleaner Production,
          2018-2035.
MyBeach. (n.d.). Texel. Retrieved 11 16, 2014, from http://www.texel.net/nl/over-texel/strand/my-beach/