Landfills are the third largest man-made source of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. (Eryn Scannell/GroundUp)
Landfills are the third largest man-made source of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. The waste sector accounts for 3.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, 70% of waste is put into landfills worldwide, often in an unregulated way say the European Suppliers of Waste to Energy Technology. This underlines the urgency of implementing zero-waste systems all over the world.
A report by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives looked at the climate impacts of better waste management with case studies on eight cities: Durban; Bandung, Indonesia; Detroit in the US; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Lviv, Ukraine; São Paulo, Brazil; Seoul, South Korea and Temuco in Chile. The report examines how zero-waste systems not only cut greenhouse gas emissions but also help cities reduce the impact of climate change and create healthier societies.
According to the report, in Durban, as many as 12% households, largely in rural and informal housing settlements, do not receive official waste services. These areas rely on waste pickers for rubbish disposal. Better support for waste pickers would allow for tracking and execution of waste material recovery, particularly for easier-to-recycle materials, such as paper and cardboard.
This support would help the city reduce greenhouse gas emissions from waste in landfills. The report says “separate collection of food and garden waste could reduce its waste-sector greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 63% relative to business as usual, the equivalent of preventing 750 000 tonnes of coal from being burned”.
The city has the potential to turn things around with the recently published Climate Action Plan. It is the first city on the African continent, and one of only 12 cities in the world, to develop and adopt a Climate Action Plan. The plan, which is aligned to the United Nations 2015 Paris Agreement, aims to reduce emissions in landfill waste by 30% by 2030 and 90% by 2050.
The plan aims to do this by “diverting all waste disposed to landfill sites by 50%” through reusing, recycling, recovery and re-engineering”.
Other benefits of effective waste management recognised by the plan include:
• Better air quality;
• Cost savings;
• Improved health;
• Job creation and
• Promotion of innovation.
The report recommends that the city fulfills the goals set in the Climate Action Plan in part by reducing good-quality leftover food in the waste stream by 80%.
Zero-waste systems
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has allowed areas to define what zero-waste systems are. The island of Guam described it as “a holistic approach to addressing the problem of unsustainable resource flows. Zero waste encompasses waste eliminated at the source through product design and producer responsibility, and waste reduction strategies further down the supply chain, such as recycling, reuse and composting”. In simple terms, zero-waste systems at their core drive communities to reduce, reuse and recycle.
Zero-waste systems are being implemented in over 550 municipalities around the world. According to the report, Tacloban City, Philippines, for instance, went from servicing 30% of households with waste collection to 100% in two years of implementing a zero-waste system, reducing the waste sent to landfills by 31% and saving 27% of waste management costs.
It also mentions how Ljubljana in Slovenia tripled jobs in the waste sector, while doubling recycling rates in eight years and reducing waste-to-landfill by 95% in 14 years, through door-to-door collection combined with a pay-as-you-throw system.
The report noted that the zero-waste model has the potential to cut emissions from the waste sector by 84% by introducing better waste-management policies, such as separation, recycling and composting. This is equivalent to taking all the cars in the US off the road for a year.
But this figure underestimates the potential impact of waste-management reforms. At least 70% of global emissions come from the manufacture, transport, use and disposal of goods and a focus on waste reduction could significantly reduce the emissions in these sectors too. For example, manufacturing goods from recycled aluminium uses 96% less energy than starting with raw materials.
Adopting a zero-waste model will help nations reach the 1.5°C benchmark for warming set by the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Waste is often ignored
“Previous climate talks have largely overlooked the potential of reforms to the waste sector, particularly for reducing methane, which over 100 countries have now pledged to do. Zero-waste strategies are the easiest way to rapidly and cheaply bring down emissions while building climate resilience, creating jobs and promoting thriving local economies,” said Mariel Vilella, director of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives’s Global Climate Programme.
The report states that devastating signs of climate change, such as increased flooding, outbreaks of vector-borne diseases and degraded soil quality, are realities in some parts of the world. For example, Durban experienced floods earlier this year. Poor waste management and collection can lead to worse effects from natural disasters brought on by climate change.
Nations are set to meet at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27) in November and waste management will be on the agenda as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At what has been dubbed the African COP, host country Egypt plans to put forward the Africa Waste 50 Initiative, aimed at treating and recycling 50% of the waste produced in Africa by 2050.
“Better waste management is a climate change solution staring us in the face. It doesn’t require flashy or expensive new technology — it’s just about paying more attention to what we produce and consume and how we deal with it when it is no longer needed,” said co-author of the report Dr Neil Tangri.
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