Unico van Kooten, European Secretary of the Dutch Waste Management Association and a Special Advisor to the Global Recycling Foundation reflects on the recent Davos meeting, landfill and the future for waste management. The Foundation is linked to the Bureau for International Recycling and is running Global Recycling Day which takes place on 18 March.
OPINION: World leaders met last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This year the risks associated with our poor track record of taking care of our planet in a proper way were firmly on the agenda. Foremost climate change, but also access to clean water and food, sea level rise and deforestation. And of course, plastics and waste polluting our oceans is on everybody’s mind. How can we better manage municipal solid waste in the world?
The Worldbank report “Waste 2.0” concluded that “globally, about 37 percent of waste is disposed of in some type of landfill, 33 percent is openly dumped, 19 percent undergoes materials recovery
through recycling and composting, and 11 percent is treated through modern incineration”. That means that we openly dump 660 million[A1] tons of waste each year. That’s 110 million trucks of waste! 190 trucks per minute! And this does not only happen in low-income countries. Also in high-income countries still 2% is openly dumped.
About 660 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) is dumped annually (Worldbank report waste 2.0). This is about 1.8 million tons per day! How many Wembley Stadiums would this fill? – Volume m3 Wembley Stadium: 1,139,000 m3 – Density dumped MSW 300 kg/m3 = 5 Stadiums.
How can we actually clean up or rivers and oceans in this way?
Last week our community of leaders were in Davos and I hoped that they would address this issue. Let’s agree to stop this malpractice. The mismanagement of waste is associated with at least 12 negative impacts. One of them is a solid contribution to greenhouse gas production.
Greenhouse Gas
The World Bank calculated that emissions from solid waste treatment and disposal, primarily driven by disposal in open dumps and landfills without landfill gas collection systems, account for about 5 percent of total global GHG emissions. Another one is the loss of resources and the need to extract even more primary raw materials. Soil pollution, diseases, hazards, uncontrolled fires and clogging the drainage system are all impacts related to mismanagement of waste.
Ranjit Baxi, Global Recycling Foundation President has said that “we are running out of time to reverse the potentially catastrophic effects of poor waste management and the only thing that will provoke the necessary change is greater global public awareness.”
We will certainly be raising awareness about this when Global Recycling Day comes on 18 March.
To respond to this issue properly acknowledgement is not enough, but should be followed by actions.
The malpractice of open dumping should be added to the bottom of the Waste Hierarchy
Investments in affordable landfilling, energy-from-waste and recycling are needed. Illegal dumping of waste, could be incorporated in international laws and policies. And the world community could step up inspections.
Hierarchy
Maybe we should not start with putting landfilling at the bottom of the Waste Hierarchy, picturing it as the worst thing you can do with waste. The malpractice of open dumping should be added to the bottom of the Waste Hierarchy, accompanied with legal text on adequate sanctions etc. A global ban on the large scale dumping of untreated waste could be a next significant step to walk faster on the global staircase of the circular economy in a sustainable way.
More information
Global Recycling Day @GlbRecyclingDay
Unico van Kooten can be contacted at: vankooten@verenigingafvalbedrijven.nl
(Cartoon by Alex van Kooten)
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
