Waste

I guess most of us would have either heard or seen how 'clean' the streets of the developed world are. On the same note, we would have heard smart comments on how 'filthy' how our own backyards are in India. We usually don't stop to think beyond this point of open admiration of the western world and criticism of ourselves regarding this cleanliness factor. A little further thinking makes us think about the final destination of all the waste that the western world generates. After all, anything and everything is packed in the developed world. The only thing that is not packed in large scale in the west is the air we breath. Every time one goes to Safeway or Wal-mart for a regular purchase, one ends up with atleast 7-8 plastic bags. Apart from this, every single item that is purchased is packed with plastic and carboard. Every eatable has a sticker on it. From the apples to bananas to onions, every single item has a sticker on it. Every food item has to be bought. Be it milk, butter milk, water or juice. Every time there is a party, hundreds of water bottles are consumed. Every time you go to have a cup of coffee, you use two coffee cups, a plastic lid for the cup, two small paper packets for sugar and a wooden stick for stirring the coffee. Obviously, such a lifestyle is going to produce tremendous amount of garbage. Above all, all garbage bins are covered with plastic bags. Once the bin is full, the plastic bag is removed, tied and left in the backyard for the waste management to pick it up. If this is the case, where do all this waste go? Why don't the people in the western world see the garbage in the streets as the people in the under-developed world?

The first answer given when this question is raised is that the waste management organizations in the west are efficient and dedicated, people in the developed world are cultured and hence they don't throw plastic bags on the streets and recycling, the purported panacea for all environmental atrocities, is being pursued rigorously in the developed world. As a result all the waste that is generated by western life styles is taken care of and hence is no seen in human colonized areas. How I wish this were true!!! Unfortunately, the reality is far from this. There are few facts that one needs to be aware of if we are to understand why.
1.) Every environment has a very limited waste sink capacity
2.) Waste management in the west is a corporate activity. This means that actions are driven by profits and by no other motive.
3.) Rules and regulations in the developed world prevent incineration of many types of waste

As a result of the above three, the waste management companies find it difficult to handle beyond certain levels of garbage profitably. They've almost run out of landfills to bury the accumulated waste. So they find it cheap and convenient to 'export the waste'. So, tonnes and tonnes of waste generated by the western life style is being transported to third world cities in africa, south america and asia where disposal cost is low due to lax administrative and safety procedures. Usual targets in asia are Indonesia, India and China. A new distinctive type of outsourcing, along the lines of software development, call centres, legal and education - waste disposal outsourcing, has blossomed. Refer to [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5] to find examples of this. I don't think it is necessary to even talk about the health and environmental hazards that this poses. Any person with even little intellect will know that improper disposal of waste will cause all sort of problems to the health of environment and the health of the living creatures in that environment.

So, is preventing this waste disposal outsourcing the solution. Or, is it to have proper disposal mechanisms in place in these asian countries. Yes and No. With a very short term perspective both of these need to be adapted. But, to get a reasonably long term solution, we need to think out of the box. Years of tutoring that more is good and more material possession means good prevents us from doing us. When cars cause environmental degradation, we only talk about fuel efficient engines and catalytic converters, but never do we talk about the reducing the usage of cars. Its about time we start thinking and acting in this direction. Waste reduction is the most important step in waste management. IMHO, a large quantity of waste can be easily limited by individuals themselves. I am not going to give a list titled the top 10 ways to reduce garbage. No amount of listing of such procedures can help us. These steps have to come from within for it to last. As most people in the western world are 'educated', once one realizes the seriousness of what ones lifestyle, and the consequent garbage, does to the environment, one is automatically pushed towards finding ways to reduce the garbage one generates.

Obviously, individual action alone cannot accomplish anything. Without significant changes to the organization of societies very little results can be achieved. But that is no excuse to generate mountains of garbage. It is not enough to call rivers as 'ganga matha' and 'cauvery matha'. We should'nt be feeding our mothers (mathas) with nickel, lead and cadmium. We should start doing things that discourage the generation of garbage at our household level. Individual efforts is the precursor to a larger social change. That is the right thing to do. Ideally, we as humans should act based on analysis of right and wrong. But off late, humans as a society have taken an evolutionary step backward. Instead of basing our actions on rights and wrongs, we base our actions on personal benefits, which is an animal characteristic. In this case of waste creation and disposal, it is not just right to produce less garbage, it is also in our interest to produce less garbage. The danger of many households having a malformed baby due to exposure of the mother to toxic chemicals is very real. So at least from the perspective of rational egoism, one needs to take steps to reduce garbage that one produces.

Lastly, it is not good to simply point hands on the western world. Many asian cities are also becoming tremendous waste sources. Chennai and Bangalore are obviously producing far more waste these days than what they produced 10 years ago. Thanks in no small part to 'globalization'. Also, wal-mart is now entering india and is planning to setup large number of shopping complexes all over the country. This is definitely going to increase consumption and hence waste generated by the cities. We need to stop being stupidly euphoric that wal-mart has condescended to come to India. We need to analyze the actual cost of this. I guess, as many people in the indian cities, whom wal-mart targets, are 'educated', this is not a terribly complex task, provided the will to find out is present. 'Development' can never be an excuse to create waste. No amount of 'development' will change basic human requirements of clean food, water and air to survive. If 'development' impacts these, we need to take a long hard look on the need of things that affect this.

For further information, refer to chapter 7 of the book Confronting Consumption [6]. I would actually suggest interested readers to read the whole book, preferably by borrowing it from someone and not by purchasing it. I thought a corollary to Moores law would be apt to conclude this post as most people who read this blog have something to do with computers. It would be that, "The amount of e-waste that is generated approximately doubles every 24 months". For some startling information on e-waste refer to [7].


References

[1] www.things.org/~jym/greenpeace/where-recycled-plastics-go.html
[3] http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1993/12/mm1293_08.html
[4] www.ban.org/ban_news/haitian_ash.html
[5] www.ban.org/ban_news/illegal.html
[6] www.ban.org/ban_news/outcry.html
[6] www.amazon.com/Confronting-Consumption-Thomas-Princen/dp/0262661284
[7] www.computerworld.com/news/2000/story/0,11280,44380,00.html