The Waste Problem
In the age of COVID, the use of single-use disposable face masks has added insult to injury, making waste an even larger concern than it was prior to 2020, when convenience culture that promoted use of many single-use products was already in full swing. Given the more dramatic, existential threat of climate change, waste management and reduction can often be left to the side. This is particularly true of plastic waste, which is present in ways that consumers may not even be aware of. The obvious plastic waste is in packaging, bottles, containers, toys, etc. There is less visible, but just as damaging plastic waste found in bottles of body wash and shampoo, for example, in the microbeads included in many those products. These find their way into our waterways and eventually to the ocean where they bio-accumulate in the guts of marine life. We are poisoning not only the ocean and its inhabitants, but eventually ourselves.
In order for progress to be made, peoples' concept of "waste" must change. By that I mean that when people are encouraged to recycle, they are tempted to think that their responsibility is then taken care of and that recycling is the most meaningful way to tackle waste. Unfortunately, recyclable materials that are collected are still waste. So it's not enough to recycle or find better ways to recycle. The key is in waste reduction. You don't have to find a solution for disposing of something that you never consume in the first place.
To get at the root cause of such a massive accumulation and continual creation of waste, one has to look at the growth of convenience culture, where single-use dishes, straws, bags, plastic bottles, detergent pods, mylar “blankets” for emergencies, and many many other products have become the norm. To be sure, we have made strides in recycling and this is always better than sending waste to the landfill. But reduction and altering how we view these things is even more important and critical for our collective future.
Reducing consumer/household waste is crucial and has to be tackled from a few different directions. Education is very important and there are some non-profits and local city-led initiatives in many places that provide education on recycling, composting, reusing, reducing and other initiatives that aim to reduce use of single-use plastics, for example. However, the larger responsibility lies with the companies that are creating, packaging and selling products in the first place. It is not enough to create feel-good messaging or to put the primary burden on consumers to shift their attitudes. This must be met with equal or greater, concrete actions by companies to reduce waste. Consumer efforts to reduce/phase out single-use plastic and other waste must be supported by the companies that are producing these products and/or pushing their use. Instead of focusing only on providing more paths to recycling their products, companies need to innovate and reduce the waste they are responsible for generating. We should all be working to *reduce* then eliminate these waste sources. Packaging redesign and reimagining how products are provided to consumers is key in this.
One way for companies to look at the issue is to think in terms of a circular economy, which is a conceptual leap over recycling that is better overall for reducing waste streams by turning them into feedstock for some other process. The first such example of this dating back to 1972 is an industrial park in Denmark that has done this. Here is the description of what they do: http://www.symbiosis.dk/en/. And below (attached) is an article that describes lessons learned from this and implications for future waste management.
The other resource for sparking thoughts on innovation and circular economy is “Cradle to Cradle”. There are cradle-to-cradle certified companies like this one: https://epea.com/en/about-us/cradle-to-cradle and places that have already taken these concepts and put them into action like this business park in the Netherlands:
https://www.betterworldsolutions.eu/first-cradle-to-cradle-business-park-in-the-netherlands/
It is not enough to focus on just one thing. As we tackle the very real and imposing threat of climate change, we must look at all the things that have added to this problem, including the generation of products and packaging that then have led to ever larger piles of waste and waste-related emissions.
