A History of Global Waste Management

The history of solid-waste on a global level is one that cannot be summed up with much brevity. This is due to the diverse nature of the many nations of the world. There are vast differences caused by economic, social and regional differences, which ultimately effects the populations interaction with their environments. The major developments either positive or negative in terms of waste management have mainly been motivated by economic changes. Industrial development in nations is usually closely linked to an increase in solid waste. However, these industrial developments can also lead towards the development of new technologies which can better deal with waste management.

Two major changes in recent history which have had the largest effects on waste management haven taken place in the European Union and in the developing world. In April of 1999, the EU implemented what was called the Landfill Directive (Council Directive 1999/31/EC.) With the ambitious goals of decreasing the negative effects especially from landfills. It put into place a Landfill Tax as well as legislation for landfill violations. This has motivated the UK and other leading European nations to look towards alternate technologies. The other large trend which has begun to change global waste management is the rise of China and other third world nations. As developing countries continue to grow, waste is most often greatly increased, and the ways in which this waste is different on a case by case basis. The reason that China worries many environmentalists is due to their lack of restrictions on pollution and waste.

1) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31999L0031:EN:NOT

The Current Wasteful Ways

With all the hype and media attention around global warming and carbon emmisions, many are over looking the threat of landfills. As with carbon emmisions, the United States and China landfill more waste than any other nations. These landfills are fed by large industry, as well as personal waste disposal. Without clearly safer and more environmental alternatives, landfills are continued to be used, atleast partially in nations across the world. Throughout the world, tens of thousands of kilometers are said to be used for landfills. In some cases this land has now become so deeply contaminated that it will never be able to be used for agriculture or even safe inhabitance. What is unkown to many is that landfills still emit greenhouse gases, and in some estimates are the leading emmiter of methane, a greenhouse gas is infact landfills.

Currently the United States is sending over half of its municipal waste to landfills with China not far behind sending about 43% of its waste to landfills. These landfills continue to build up without much end in sight. The United Nations Environmental Protection Programme has commented that the problem of landfills in the developing world is quite dire, with solid waste disposal often not meeting the minimum standards for the developed world. It becomes a very tricky situation in dealing with the developing world who may not have the political or economic means or motivation to safely dispose of their solid waste.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/08/eco.about.landfills/index.html#cnnSTCText

The Big Picture

Unfortunatley, making a change for the better on a global scale will be much more difficult then fixing our own local or domestic land fill issues. In trying to create any type of "global standard" for the environment we must enter into the realm of foregin policy and international relations. As evidenced in the Kyoto Protocol, even a beneficial and widely accepted plan can be rather in significant when leading global-players refuse to take part. The technologies that would be used in place of landfills sometimes require infrastructure, such as incineration plants or biological treatments. It is very hard for any international institution to forcibly require developing nations such as Brazil, India and China to take up such means, when we most certainly did not during our period of industrialization. In my opinion the hope for change lies in the developed world to make the change.

The Kuznets curve of luxury goods has been cited by some economists, such as 2007 Rhodes Scholar Leng Lee to explain the possible outcome of the developing world's environmental footprint. The Kuznets curve explains that an inequality will increase over time until a certain income level is reached at which point, said inequality will decrease. Is the environment a luxury good, that we will begin to care for better once a certain income level is reached? Well this cannot be determined for sure, but it is quite clear that countries such as the USA, Canada, EU, Japan, South Korea and Australia have to be the leaders in the elimination of landfills. It is actions such as the EU's agreement amongst member countries to move away from landfills that we need to institute. We need to lead the way as an economic super power in terms of beginning to eliminate our landfills in ways such as those listed bellow. In doing so we can set an example for the developing world, rather than pointing our fingers in blame at them.

Individual Action on a Global Scale

One of the greatest curses to the youth of the world is that of apathy. A sense that we are too insignificant to make a difference in the world often leads to non-action. The quality of our environment is something that every individual effects, and is also something that every global citizen should care about. The environment is a commons, that we all must share, and we will need the combined actions of all global citizens to combat the landfill issue.

The first and quite possibly most important step that can be taken is one of education and information. It is important to research the situations in other countries, all the while keeping an open mind and seeking the truth. It is also important to keep in mind that the legal and social differences between the United States and other Nations could lead to various opinions or methods of waste disposal. We should not keep the information which we gain to ourselves, but rather we should inform others. With the free flow of information created by the internet and other media, there is no reason that you cannot seek to inform someone in China or India about the problem of landfills and solid waste.

A simple practice of consumer sovereignty can go a long ways. Purchasing products made from recycled goods, even if at a slightly higher cost is a move towards the solution. In purchasing these goods, we are telling the producers that we want more sustainable products such as this. In the new global market, we may begin to see the competitive asian exporters producing sustainable goods.

The Road to the Problem

First a little history: World War II was the driving force in pushing Americans out of the Great Depression. The government poured money into the economy to make military equipment. When WWII ended, Americans used their revived economy (since Europe wasn't very economically stable at this point in history) to produce more and more goods. Urban growth accelerated at an astounding rate, and with it came the "refuse generation".

As people became concerned with the air pollution that came with burning garbage, more and more of the waste ended up in landfills. These landfills were very primitive back in the mid-1900's. For example, a landfill in California studied by the University of California in 1949 was basically a scattering of trash over a large area, allowing scavengers easy access and pigs were often let out in the landfill for some free overnight feeding. People came to realize that letting pigs eat pure trash was highly unsanitary, and the government worked to make a "sanitary landfill". They researched through the 1940's and 1950's. Slowly, the modern landfill came out. The most obvious difference between this sanitary landfill and other dumping methods is the daily cover that they put over the trash (1). However, this cover restricts air flow, so decomposition occurs very, very slowly. In fact, newspapers over 40 years old have been found in landfills so well preserved that you can still read off of them (2). In 1965, the federal government passed the Solid Waste Disposal Act in an attempt to introduce sanitary landfill practices. Fast forward to 1976 when Congress realized that the landfill issue needed more attention, and directed EPA to specify criteria for classifying landfills under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. From there on, the EPA made little major decisions concerning landfills, focusing more on the non-landfill methods of managing wastes (1). Here we are now, with more trash than ever and a steadily decreasing amount of places to put it.

1) http://www.forester.net/msw_0001_history.html

2) http://www-esd.lbl.gov/ECO/smart_store/problems.html

The Current Situation

Nobody wants a pile of garbage in their backyard, so when the government decides to build a new landfill, the hair starts flying. People are very willing to fight against trash, and trying to get a new landfill regulated and construction started can take years of bureaucracy (the regulations have been getting stricter over the years, see them at the EPA site). In the end, the poor minority people have no choice but to take up the burden, since they don't have much influence in politics. In New York, the Fresh Kills Landfill was scheduled to be shut down in 2001. Where was the trash going to go? Almost all of the 85 stations in New York ended up in the industrial zones by the waterfront that is home to many low-income minority neighborhoods. A neighborhood mostly full of Puerto Ricans and blacks (Hunts Point) sees 40% of the city's privately collected trash every day. The huge number of trash that goes through the neighborhood has caused asthma rates to skyrocket in the last decade. To see the full article, go here.

Not a very pretty picture, is it?

Statistics show that the average American is producing more and more trash. According to the EPA, in 1960, a person made around 2.7 pounds of trash per day. In 2005, that number rose to 4.5 pounds of trash per day. When you factor in population growth, the difference in the amount of trash America as a whole produces from 1960 to 2005 is staggering.

Here's a little trivia. Landfills are closing at about a rate of 1 landfill per day. There was more than 18000 landfills in 1979. By 1995, there was only about 3000 landfills. While there was a 84% drop in the number of landfills in those 16 years, there was a 80% increase in the amount of trash. It's clear that if we don't take care of our growing trash problem soon, we'll be buried in it ourselves, and the first people to be buried will be the bottom of society.

Big Solutions

It's obvious that the country's landfills must be upgraded in order to protect the environment from leachates (liquid, mostly water, that seeps out of landfills or composting material) leaking into our rainwater or groundwater.

Smart Storage is a company specializing in managing landfill waste, and has designed a new kind of landfill that will optimize decomposition of waste and stabilize waste so that it is non-toxic and could even be mined for metals, glass, and soil. However, reducing what goes into the landfills in the first place is the best way to solve our landfill problems (the basic design is shown in the corner). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) considers "source reduction" (that is, changing the design, manufacture, or use of a product to reduce the amount and toxicity of what gets thrown away) as the preferred method of dealing with the landfill problem, followed by recycling (which diverts items away from the waste stream so that the items can be resold as a new product). Source reduction and recycling helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduces pollutants, saves energy, conserves resources, and reduces the need for new landfills and combusters. The EPA reports that in the year 2005, Americans diverted more that 79 million tons of waste from the waste stream, up from just 15 million tons in 1980. However, more than half of all waste is still being dumped into landfills (54% in the same year, according to the EPA). If anything, the government should keep pushing for people to reuse and recycle. The money spent teaching the public now will be nothing compared to the money used to keep building more and more landfills (this article shows the rising cost of landfills frustrating the citizens of Northampton County).

Force companies to change their materials. Toxic materials have a huge impact on the environment, and we shouldn't tolerate big companies adding dangerous materials to our products. As technology quickly advances, electronics like cell phones end up in landfills very quickly (approximately 130 million cell phones a year), and in those phones is a combination of toxic material, like arsenic, brominated compounds, and lead. These materials are harmful to humans, and can cause nervous system damage, reproductive and developmental problems, and cancer. Is this health hazard something we want around us? Read on, if you dare, at the Grinning Planet. If you want to get rid of your old phone safely, consider contacting the Call2Recycle program, a non-profit organization that helps people recycle their phones safely. These are all ways to help protect our environment from the wastes that we produce.