One would think that simple tenets of science would be widely known and understood, but it seems there are many who would ignore truths in their desire to turn Africa into a dumping ground for the North.
For example, it is self-evident that matter cannot be created or destroyed, yet people from the North persist in telling us that waste can be burnt, “converting” it into harmless products, such as carbon dioxide and water. Or that there are “zero” emissions (the term often used is “below detectable levels”, but it can always be measured).
They conveniently forget to tell us that, regardless of the level of emissions, they are simply moving pollution from one medium to another — the great rubbish dump in the sky! The air emissions inevitably contain dioxins and furans, a range of pollutants caused mainly through the combustion of plastics, which are recognised as being carcinogenic.
South Africa is a signatory to the Stockholm Convention, which it is hoped we will ratify this year. This requires us to reduce the production of persistent organic pollutants, often referred to as “the Dirty Dozen”. They are highly toxic emissions known to cause harm to all life. Dioxins and furans are included in the list.
In the gap before such reductions become law, technology purveyors from the North, denied markets at home, are rushing to sell us “the ideal solution” to our waste problems.
Forget for a moment that some of these technologies have failed tests run by, for example, the United States Defence Department in its bid to seek safe ways of handling chemical waste.
The leftover solid waste, almost always containing hazardous materials, has to be treated at great expense, but even so, only defers the harm, as all landfills, no matter how well designed, will eventually release the waste into our environment.
About 58 of the 70 incinerators in Gauteng are currently operating, with only 25 registered. None has air pollution control equipment (one has, but it does not work) and none works as it was designed to. If we implemented our national guidelines on air pollution they would fail the test. And still, there are a slew of applications for new incinerators. When will this stop?
The truth is that incineration is not the only, nor the safest, means of handling waste. Incineration goes against all the basics we should be implementing to attain sustainable development — it creates a market for waste, so all attempts to minimise waste will be vigorously fought; the energy lost (even if we “capture” some of the energy from incinerators — a dubious sales pitch) will never be made up; and will simply mean fewer resources for all.
Of all the material used in the US (and here in South Africa), only 1% is still being used in products six months after their sale — the rest is waste. Further, 64kg of waste is created for every 1kg of finished product. An untenable state of affairs, yet we are unable to stop those processes that generate a demand for waste rather than resource conservation with its benefits in improved health and more jobs.
Medical waste, for example, is a convenient excuse for ongoing incineration. Forget the horror factor for a second and consider this: 99,99% of infection from medical waste is from “sharps” (needles and blades), not from the rest of the waste.
So, what if we approached medical waste like this? Separate at source, so we can minimise the volumes that require special treatment (this cuts costs); grind up all that is left and pass it through an “autoclave” (sterilising unit); then drop this (now safe to handle) waste into water so that plastics can float to the surface and be recycled. What is left is safe and would make, for example, very good cover for landfill sites. Elegant, but too simple for the purveyors of failed technologies of the North (and, it seems, many South Africans).
The solutions are simple. Stop creating unnecessary wastes, and apply full cost accounting to all products, so that we no longer subsidise harmful practices. By producers not bearing the full cost of their processes, you and I are paying, both in money terms and in our health.
A worrying trend, particularly with regard to proposed incinerators for toxic and hazardous waste — such as those proposed for Sasolburg and Springs — is that the proponents are not prepared to carry out a full environmental impact assessment, and are beginning to ask that the authorities make a decision on the first “scoping” phase alone. This means no studies, no information on health and no information on the cumulative impacts of more incinerators. Where will this stop? Only when it is proven (yet again) that people die from these processes?
Our law is simple: the polluter shall pay. If we could implement this simple law properly, we would be on the road to real sustainability, and discard all these technologies, products and processes that harm our people and the economy, and funnel money into the pockets of the elite few, who are usually not even Africans.
Muna Lakhani is a volunteer member of the Earthlife Africa (Johannesburg) Toxics Group