Global problems, local fixes

*Drumroll* As promised! But a couple of days late... My comparative study! *Applause*
I've picked California (US), and Dhaka, in Bangladesh. Of course, one is a state and one is a city, but I've tried to narrow it down a little. Most articles I've seen look at California vs say, Indonesia (a state and a country! Which is more 'unfair' and also shows the different scales of information and research available). 

Pollution levels - in the rivers and seas:
A new study in Science has attempted the impossible... to measure the amount of plastics actually flowing into our oceans. They found that large quantities of these plastics stem from a small number of rapidly developing countries. I think the 'rapidly developing' point is important here. Countries undergoing quick population and economic growth, particularly centred in urban areas, can struggle to maintain their infrastructures to the extent necessary to deal with the influx. The top 20 countries who score badly for mismanaged waste contribute to 83% of the plastic waste entering our oceans. This is a damning report for those countries, but highlights the need to tackle the issue of waste management in a sustainable way. 

Let's start with Dhaka. One of the fastest growing megacities in the world, and one of the most densely populated, it is also one of the most polluted (UNFPA). The estimated amount of waste generated in urban areas alone is 0.41kg/capita/day, working out as over 13,000 tonnes daily. Waste composition however is largely organic, with inorganic materials only comprising around 20% (see Fig 1.)

Source: I. Enayutullah et al (2005)

Nonetheless, average waste collection is at an average of 55%, and this figure is as low as 37% in Dhaka. The lack of bins, street cleaners, and effective wast management means that rubbish is piled high on the streets, in the drains, and in overflowing landfills. Even though the bulk of Dhaka (and Bangladesh's) waste is organic, the inorganic elements comprised of plastics, ceramics, and chemical still remains highly detrimental to the the health of citizens, but also to the surrounding environments and water systems to which they inevitably leak into. You can imagine this effect downstream and the damage caused when these polluted rivers enter the ocean. 

In California, the problem is much less visible. The are no, or not many, piles of stinking rubbish in the street. People have their waste collected from their homes, and they are encouraged to recycle. However, richer countries have (usually) higher consumption rates, and also consume different things (see figure below). What we can see already is much less organic materials, but almost doubled plastic waste (10.4%) compared to Bangladesh (at around 5%). 

Source: CalRecycle, 2015

What isn't mentioned in many of these state-measured statistics is the prevalence of micro-plastic pollution, which has been increasingly in the spotlight in the last couple of years. The use of washing machines and cosmetic products in developed countries has massively increased the rate of microplastic or microfibre release into waterways and oceans, especially because the are not effectively filtered out in water treatment plants. The presence of plastics in the digestive tracts of fish is a clear indicator of wastewater management practices in various regions of the world. A study confirmed that market place fish from Californian waters contained more synthetic and natural microfibres, whilst Indonesian-sourced fish had a larger amount of anthropogenic plastic debris. 
Other studies looking into plastic pollution in rivers found 2.3 billion pieces in 72 hours, weighing 30,500kg. Roughly 20 National Parks have banned the sale of disposable plastic water bottles, as they make up 1/3 of the trash dumped in the parks. San Francisco has banned the sale of plastic water bottles in 2014.  There are loads of examples of California and the U.S addressing the problems of plastic pollution, but is it enough? And are the waste management schemes working hard enough not only to combat pollution, but also environmentally damaging waste levels?


Waste Management - the failings?:
As mentioned, the rapidly growing population particularly within the slum settlements of Dhaka causes an absolute nightmare for waste collection. This is where developed and undeveloped countries largely differ. Whilst California's waste management may be subject to criticism, the bulk of waste is successfully being collected from homes. However, in densely populated cities with poor infrastructure, collection is an almost impossible task. In many Bangladeshi urban areas, there are only 0.55-1.2 street cleaners per 1000 people. The tools for collection often consist of open-topped trucks or even carts - these prove especially ineffective in narrow slums, 90% of which have no regular garbage collection service (Momin, 1992: 7). Waste bins are few and far between, with only 4000 for 7 million residents in Dhaka. These collection problems are compounded by animals and scavengers who scatter the piles of rubbish, but also by cultural attitudes that largely regard street cleaners as 'untouchables', or the lowest Hindu caste. In turn, people will not clean up their own litter, let alone other peoples litter as it is viewed as the job of an inferior. 
The growth of these unplanned cities has placed further stress on current landfills, and the pressure to find new landfills is being overcome by illegal dumping and burning of unsegregated wastes, much of it hazardous and toxic. Residential and industrial waste are so far not seperated, and end up in the same waste-streams. 
There is one up-side to the situation in Dhaka. There is a booming informal market of waste-pickers. While the job is unsanitary and dangerous, the money earned from selling paper, bottles, or plastic containers for recycling is not negligible. As well as that, it's been estimated to have reduced the city's waste by 15%. Waste Concern seeks a widespread change in attitudes to see waste as a resource, not a problem. Their 'Trash for Crash' initative will be discussed shortly. 
The key failings in Bangladesh, and Dhaka more narrowly, is the failings of the government and City Corporations. They are not (or cannot) provide and maintain the necessary tools for effective waste collection or management. Any legislation that does exist toward management remains unenforced. Infrastructures such as drains, roads, bins, planning permission, landuse-zoning are not kept or protected. One article mentioned how new high-rise flats are not fitted with any chutes or waste disposal facilities, meaning the rubbish is left to rot on the stairwells. It's a flawed system, compounded by a lack of understanding from the residents themselves about their responsibility toward their own health and environment. 

Californian waste management, in terms of keeping the streets clean, is massively efficient. They hold commercial and industrial units responsible for their waste practices, and have a thorough system of enforcing state regulations; imposing fines and compliance orders upon offenders (see here). For corporations who try to circumvent these rules, there are many examples of civil lawsuits successfully tackling mismanagement, with several multi-million dollar settlements being secured against large retailers since 2011. 
This process of accountability for large firms and also residents has allowed California to focus much more energy on waste reduction and recycling. The state has already set a goal of 75% recycling, composting, or source reduction of solid waste by 2020, with some key strategy pillars being 1) moving organic material out of landfill, 2) expanding recycling infrastructures, 3) promotion extended producer responsibility and 4) promoting state procurement of recycled products. This is really great news, and UC San Diego have a comprehensive plan to reach these targets on campus, including the provision of recycling bins, mulching organic material onsite and using it for landscape beautification, as well as promoting awareness to achieve the zero-waste goal they have set themselves. 
However, there is controversy surrounding the popular single-stream method of recycling. Recyclable waste in many examples is not segregated, in an effort to reduce costs. However, contamination of these recyclable materials, such as glass breakage, means that significant amounts are sent to the landfill, or downcycled because of marketability. Likewise, the 'Big Blue Bins' provided for this single-stream recycling often contain non-recyclable plastics. Items contained within the plastics bags have to be discarded as waste.


Future solutions:
There is hope. In Bangladesh especially where the problems are so numerous, it means there are numerous solutions. I'll leave aside the suggestions of 'better waste collection tools' and 'efficient garbage disposal', since these haven't worked so far, and are quite obvious solutions in a perfect world. Instead, I'll focus on the more innovative methods. The Trash for Cash initiative mentioned earlier aims to build on the already thriving informal recycling industry, but in a way that also educates and protects the waste-pickers from exploitation. Enayutullah et al (2005) propose to harness the massive amounts of organic material waste for profit. Not only will compostable waste reduce the pressure on landfill requirements (see figure below), but revenue could be earned from selling it on as organic fertilizer, and also trading the benefits of reduced GHG emissions with developed countries: an exciting prospect.

Source: I. Enayutullah et al (2005)

One thing many of the articles about Bangladesh's waste management advocate is the separation of different types of waste, and deal with them in the suitable manner. In California, this has a name; diversion, and it is already happening on a large scale.

However, is it enough? Vergara et al (2011) share the same ideal that GHG emission reductions can be procured from alternative treatments of California's solid waste. They agree with the critics in Bangladesh that waste should not be viewed as a nuisance to be disposed of, but as a resource to be reused. As Californian recycling is already a large industry, their focus is on the non-recyclable waste and how it could be utilised for an overall benefit to the economy and environment, estimating that a 40% reduction in waste could save 6Mt of C02 per year. How? Through a combination of anaerobic digestion, landfill gas capture, and life-cycle assessments of products which should encourage producers to have the end-of-life perspective in mind. 

Source: EPA, 2015 

Also suggested is consumer incentives, or indeed disincentives such as through Pay-As-You-Throw programmes, charging consumers relative to the amount they dispose. They say, and I agree, that material or monetary incentives are a much surer way to impact a change rather than educational programmes. It is the same globally. People's attitudes can change, but to the extent that they overhaul their behaviour? Realistically, no. People need to be nudged to make changes. Personally, I recycle and try to be frugal in what I consume. And researching into waste management and pollution over the last couple of weeks has made me much more aware, and I contribute even more so to my recycling bin as a result. However, if someone began to charge me proportionally to the amount I waste, I am certain I would make an extra effort to reduce. We (the governments?) need to make it easy for people to recycle and reuse, and hard for them to waste. 

Conclusion

Moral of the story for this post is that waste is a global problem. Each and every country wastes. But each context is different; different amounts, materials, attitudes, technologies, infrastructure, economies - all contribute to (the lack of) waste management. And in each context is a fix LOCAL to this global issue. I'm trying to be optimistic: there are a massive amount of problems, but that means there is a massive number of solutions. 

Since this blog post was posted way too late in the week, I'm hoping to get another out by Saturday. I'll be looking at the impossible task of asking 'who's responsibility is it?!' and drawing on what I can remember from last years Environment & Society lectures. I'm not promising any answers or solutions, but stay tuned.