Waste Problem and Management in Insular and Isolated Systems. Case Study in the Canary Islands (Spain)

The municipal waste management is becoming increasingly important in regional policies. While, on one hand there are currently high rates of recycling, it is also true that waste production grows exponentially. Waste management is a difficult task, but in the case of island territories is very complex, being isolated and limited territories. Also the need to establish a plan for restoration of degraded areas, as landfills must be considered. Given the continuous increase in the amount of waste managed, waste is one of the biggest problems facing environmental management in the Canaries. In small and limited spaces such as islands even taking into account the increased capacity of waste recovery, is where it has the greatest sense premise that "the best waste is not produced". The Canary Islands lie with the challenge of developing a management model that solves the collection and treatment of new waste streams according to the EU, national and regional legislation. It has to be taken into account its character as an island with a important tourist population, which, although not considered legal population, is generating waste.1. Introduction

As time goes by and the runaway economic and population growth experienced by the islands, it has been long forgotten that much of what we call today and we considered waste were earlier reused as domestic and local resource. Changes in consumption patterns, rapid urbanization of the population and an increase in living standards of the citizens have also led to a more significant increase in the size of the problem, which today has a tremendous and unprecedented scale in isolated and limited territories such as islands.

One of the oldest methods for getting rid of waste has been freely throw...

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...onmental offenses, including illegal constructions. All this leads to the indiscriminate and constant proliferation of illegal dumping , especially in coastal areas and ravines whose degradation begins to be worrisome , especially on islands like Gran Canaria and Lanzarote.

Infringing activity on environmental issues has been significantly reduced in the Canaries due to increased inspection and control. These spaces, like the controlled landfills require a recovery order to increase the environmental quality of the site (Santamarta, 2013).

The key actions of the restoration work include:

• Excavation and removal of waste in order to achieve a final relief as consistent as possible with the environment

• Contribution of topsoil to facilitate landscape integration

• Revegetation with species adequate to the environment

• Perimeter fence to prevent further releases