Eunomia was commissioned by TOMRA to design and test the Holistic Resources System, a global waste management system designed to address the issues of carbon emissions, pollution and overconsumption.

The Holistic Resources System brings together ‘good practice’ waste management techniques into a single system designed to respond to the age-defining challenges of managing waste and minimising its impact on the planet, using both national and local level waste management approaches.

The Holistic Resources System is comprised of three complimentary collection system elements:

  • Deposit Return System (DRS) for PET beverage bottles and metal beverage cans (glass beverage packaging in some cases)
  • Separate collections of biowaste, papers, textiles and small electrical items and batteries
  • Mixed waste sorting for remaining recyclable materials in the residual waste stream.

The report tests the themes and components of the Holistic Resources System in three case studies:

  • Friesland
  • Milan
  • Stavanger

Each case study has some or all of the three principal components of the Holistic Resources System. The report measures the performance of these case studies by calculating the recycling rate and greenhouse gas (GHG) recycling rate – a metric designed to value the benefit recycling has on reducing carbon emissions.

This report sits alongside Waste in the Net-Zero Century: How Better Waste Management Practices Can Contribute to Reducing Global Carbon Emissions, both of which fed into TOMRA’s white paper on Holistic Resource Systems.

This report is available free of charge. Please provide a few details about yourself and one of the team will email you the full report shortly.