Waste Management - Stemming The Tide?

Stemming the tide is exactly what our current waste management technologies are not doing. Worldwide, both in countries with and without efficient waste managing infrastructures, litter is finding its way to the oceans. My last blog post mentioned the example of pollutants, particularly sanitary ones (20%) being found in the Thames in the vicinity of sewage treatment plant, suggesting inefficient filtering of water. This problem is compounded in a number of ways, especially with the increases in the commercial use of microplastics, such as in cosmetic products. Again, water treatment facilities are not equipped to completely filter out all of these particles.

Our waste management techniques are old. Marshall & Farahbakhsh (2013) provide a comprehensive review of the history and current attitudes concerning Solid Waste Management (SWM), and how it was principally driven by five factors: 1) public health in the sanitary revolution (London 1790-1850) - aiming to remove waste from urban areas. The other four drivers take into consideration the post-WW2 boom in consumption, and it's effect on 2) the environment. Then we have 3) resource scarcity and the value of waste - which particularly in developing countries now leads to quite extensive networks of an informal economy based on  the collecting and recycling of waste - then 4) climate change and the global pressure which accompanies it, and 5) public awareness and participation which has a focus on changing consumer behaviours and attitudes to waste.

However, the problem with current waste management is that we have not changed our infrastructures to accommodate the new materials we use - increasingly synthetic materials which cannot be burned, and which do not degrade when buried in landfill sites. While protecting the environment has increasingly become a factor that determines how we manage our waste, legislation and innovation toward that goal has not modernised fast enough. What is required is a paradigm shift, concerning two aspects of waste. The first is how we get rid of it, and how we should work towards finding efficient ways to deal with the massively increased levels of plastic waste. The second is harder - changing consumer and producer behaviours to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place (Jambeck et al, 2015). It is estimated that we will not reach 'Peak Waste' before 2100, meaning it becomes vital that we begin to tackle these issues as soon as possible. In the same article Jambeck et al mention that reducing inputs of waste by 50% in the 20 top-ranked countries for pollution - through both adequate disposal and less consumption - would see a 41% decrease in the amount of mismanaged waste by 2025.

What we are confronted with is a global problem that requires a number of different approaches to be solved. Already, the issue of Plastic Soup has been globally addressed through international forums such as the UNEP. But is this platform only successful in it's advocacy of these issues? The report itself admits there is "a lack of effective global, regional and national strategies to address municipal and other sources of waste. It also suggests deficiencies in the implementation and enforcement of existing regulations and standards,some of which may lack economic support." And here we have the crux of it. Responses, in my opinion, need to be localised. The issue of plastic pollution in our waterways or oceans effects each place differently. Yes, there is litter in the Thames, but it doesn't cause severe and deadly flooding like it does in Bangladesh. Yes, plastic bottles wash up on the Thames beaches, but it doesn't affect our tourism industry to the same extent as it has the potential to do so in Brazil, especially with the upcoming Olympic games in 2016. These multiple impacts of pollution, combined with varied economic and socio-cultural circumstances, require a down-scaled approach to combat plastic pollution.

Waste management is actually a highly economically-invested industry. While money may be pumped into high-tech facilities to manage waste in developing countries, the continued running and maintenance costs are unsustainable, and render these facilities inadequate. Likewise, while development may come hand in hand with economic growth and the implication that waste infrastructures could be improved, it also comes hand in hand with more consumption, the discarding of items rather than their repair, and increasingly rapid urbanisation and NIMBY-ism, which in turn makes it more difficult for new waste management sites to be located (Marshall & Farahbakhsh, 2013; APO, 2007.) 

This is such a complex problem that even though I am researching possible solutions, I just keep talking about other problems. What I'm trying to say is countries all across the world are being affected by plastic pollution, but in different ways. Therefore, each country (or municipality!) needs to focus their energies on preventing these individual and specific impacts of pollution. HOWEVER, what can be deployed worldwide is the acknowledgment that we h.a.v.e to s.t.o.p using copious amounts of 1) plastic, but 2) materials in general! And here is where we run into other problems: who can teach us to stop? Governments charging us 5p for using plastic bags? Producers using less packaging and materials? Or the consumer making active decisions not to buy products, not to litter, to recycle, to repair, to reuse. There are so many stakeholders that really, all aspects need to be harnessed to work together. 

I don't have the answer. Sorry. But you can look forward to my next post which will be a comparative study of two contrasting places in the world (I haven't decided where yet), and I'll be looking at the specific issues they face in terms of pollution, management, and solutions. I will try to put everything I just rambled about into example form! Keep posted.