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Few months ago, in the report “Wasted Health” published by
ISWA, it was clearly mentioned that dumpsites are becoming a global health
emergency. Both the authors (me and
David Newman) couldn’t imagine that the fire that started recently in Deonar, Mumbai’s
132 hectares oldest dumpsite, that receives 4,000 tons of waste per day, will be
so emblematic for our argument. Actually, the smoke emitted is so thick that it
blotted out the sun and obviously, the health risk for the neighboring residents
are more than high. The fire is so big and intense that it is also visible from
space, according NASA’s released satellite images. You can see the relevant CNN video here.
NASA’s
estimation is that the garbage pile is roughly 30 meters big. While the
authorities are still looking for the cause of the fire, something practically
useless since in such a dumpsite spontaneous fires are the rule and not the
exception, we can certainly remind the obvious.
The scale of the health and environmental risks posed by
dumpsites is visible from space, so it can’t be invisible and underestimated by
decision makers, governments and international stakeholders. This is a global alarm, if we don't have a global coordinated response to the health emergency posed by dumpsites, such incidents will become more ann more frequent. We need a roadmap
to close at least all the 50 biggest dumpsites of the world right here, right
now and ISWA has already started to work on the first phase of such a project..
Anyone who would be interested to cooperate for such a project, please contact
me directly
Few hours before the official release of the new Star Wars sequel (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) the buzz about the movie has skyrocketed. Harrison Ford revealed how his leg was almost broken by hydraulic forces. The new movie is expected by decades of millions of impatient Star Wars fans. But the same is true for the reaction of the waste management industry to the tsunami of the third industrial revolution - I dare to write that we need something like a rapid awakening and paradigm shift in order to surf on the huge waves of the current technological, social and economic change.
"Our world is becoming more controversial than ever. We are
capable to identify the quantity and quality of water in March, in a distance
which ranges between 35-100 million km
but, due to poverty and lack of appropriate global response, roughly 700
million people (1 to 10) lack access to safe water. We are discussing how to
utilize the Internet of Things in industrialized economies but, according the
recent ISWA’s “Wasted Health: The tragic
case of dumpsites” report, the health impacts of dumpsites are worst than
malaria in India, Indonesia and Philippines. On the bright side, the third
industrial revolution creates new, unimaginable opportunities for making
sustainability a cornerstone of each and every industrial sector. On the dark side,
the recent “Global Waste Management
Outlook” (GWMO) report revealed that roughly 2-3 billion people lack the
most elementary waste services while
As far as we know, industrial revolutions are long
historical waves that gradually cover the planet. In reality, even now, there
are parts of our world that have not been so much affected by the second
industrial revolution. So no one expects that the third industrial revolution
would soon transform the whole planet. But the current industrial revolution is
based on technologies that follow exponential rather than linear paths of
development – practically it means that the change that is coming will be too
big and too fast. And this change is happening with the current shift of power
(from global “north” to global “south”) and the continuously growing global
interconnectivity. It is expected that the current industrial revolution will
affect mostly the developing world (roughly 40% of the planet’s population). The
poorer part of the world will benefit much more than the richer one, for the
first time in the history of industrial revolutions.
In this rapidly changing landscape, disruption of
traditional industries will very soon be the new “business as usual”. A recent
IDC report, published on November 4 this year, predicts that by 2020 one third
of the top 20 firms, in every industry, will be seriously disrupted or even
failed. The recycling and waste management industry seems unprepared for substantial
changes – unfortunately, a good, even if complicated and expensive, adaptation
plan is not enough. What is coming is a radical redefinition of what is called
waste and how it will be managed."
Well, this is the introduction of my new article "Third industrial revolution and the future of recycling" that was published yesterday at the Waste Management World magazine (November - December 2015 issue) - you can register for free and enjoy the whole article plus a great content from many important contributors. If you want to continue click here
At the same time the world makes huge steps to use mobile phones for health protection (as it the recent case where mobile phone records can be used to predict the geographical spread and timing of Dengue epidemics - See more here), important elementary problems that concern billions are still ignored. And of course we are all happy that the declaration for an Embola free Africa by the end of 2015, but looking closer it seems that the roots for pandemics are still growing in many cases in Africa, as its dumpsites are getting bigger and more widespread.
Well, yesterday ISWA launched my recent report on the tremendous health problems that are generated from dumpsites - you can find and download the full report here and the press release here.
The video below describes briefly the report's highlights and captures its spirit.
First of all, the main outcome of the report is that dumpsites have become a global health emergency and not just an important environmental issue - its impacts influence the lives of billions of people, directly and indirectly. Some more comments:
1. The health consequences from dumpsites are not as dramatic than we all thought - they are much more worse and they are getting worse day by day just because the waste that is brought to dumpsites is increasing continuously, especially in the developing world, due to urbanisation, increase of the GDP/cap and the rise of the new middle class with its own intensive consumption patterns.
2. There are countries like Indonesia, Philippines and India where scientific evidence shows that the health impacts posed by dumpsites are higher than the ones posed by malaria! This is an unbelievable development, which shows that underestimating the waste management challenges creates a new health landscape dominated by dumpsites.
3. The rising e-waste stream is not yet fully studied and understood in terms of its health and environmental impacts - however all the available studies demonstrate new and very high health risks - in the report you can find a lot of references from China and SE Asia that document the impacts posed by dumping e-waste.
4. Using some elementary calculations, it seems that the annual cost of the health impacts posed by dumpsites are in the order of billions or decades of billions per year - using 50% of this amount of money for helping developing countries resolve their waste management problems will have positive economic, environmental and health impacts on the long-term and save many thousands lives immediately.
There is an urgent need for action by the international community - as a good friend told me recently, our message for decision makers must be as simple as this "you can't say that you don't know".
Special thanks to David Newman, ISWA's president, for his contribution. Many thanks to Niki Mavropoulos (Waste Atlas manager) for her extensive research and acknowledgements to my colleagues Costas Velis (prof. The University of Leeds), Vivek Agraval (Chair of ISWA's Working Group on Collection) and Nikos Rigas (D-Waste graphic's designer) for their ideas and practical help.
Since the kids, in most parts of the world, are preparing themselves to go back to schools, after weeks or months of vacations, I believe it is the right time for computer and the waste management industries to study their lessons from the current E-waste management status. And I believe that those lessons are elementary for the future of waste management and recycling - so this is Trend #3: E-waste management. And the reason is because E-waste management includes all the dimensions of the future problems: rapid change of materials and products, fast consumption, valuable resource recovery, serious environmental and health impacts, multinational non-state giants, global conventions and a conflict between developed and developing worlds. In brief, the situation goes like this.
According the most recent statistics by STEP (Solving The E-waste Problem) initiative, in 2014 roughly 42 million tones of E-waste were generated. The global production of E-waste is continuously rising and it will be exponentially increased as developing economies grow and new technologies are developed.
For
any given country, the total number of computers and other potential E-waste
items is strongly correlated with the country's GDP, because electrical and
electronic items are essential for the functioning of all but the most
primitive economies. But the main problem is not their rising generation but their
inappropriate management and the associated illegal exports - recycling and
dumping practices, mainly at India, SE Asia and China.
Despite the many international
efforts to resolve the problem, E-waste management is becoming an emblematic
failure of our modern societies as it combines a. rapid and continuous
technological progress in manufacturing and process power b. fast consumption
and rapid change of products or their versions and c. an unprepared waste
management system which finally pushes e-waste to SE Asia for environmentally
harmful management.
Contamination associated with E-waste has already caused
considerable environmental degradation in poor countries and negatively
affected the health of the people who live there. The rapidly growing
literature and evidence on the serious environmental and health impacts posed
by current management practices in China and India is a certain signal for the
importance of the problem. Thus, E-waste
should be considered as a global health emergency too. For the available scientific evidence you can check the article "Health consequences of exposure to e-waste: a systematic review"
There is still limited
knowledge on the ecological effects, human health risks and remediation options
for some E-waste contaminants, such as Li and Sb, since they are not normally
environmental pollutants. But this is not hopeful at all, in contrast, there are many reasons to be afraid of our limited knowledge.
Now, why do I believe that the solutions that will be formulated in E-waste will define future waste management trends? Simply, because E-waste is becoming a so emblematic problem that needs an emblematic solution too. If governments, waste management companies and of course, most of all, the big and powerful gadgets' producers (Apple, Samsung, Google etc.) are going to create viable recycling and resource recovery networks for this global problem, then this will be used as a patterns for other, similar, universal waste streams. If this will not be the case, then sooner or later, the current disastrous management of E-waste will destroy the reputation of the companies that produce gadgets. And this will impact, certainly, their products distribution and popularity. And of course, there is no solution without redesign of the main products, the fourth and maybe the most important R in this case, after Reuse, Recycle, Recover
Instead of conclusions, I feel that rich countries have self-interest in mitigating the negative environmental effects of E-waste because it will negatively affect the quality and quantity of food and manufactured goods that are imported from poor countries. Let's hope they will act on time...
