Sustainability - A Matter of Choice

Waste



Garbage - the by-product of consumption - is by no means unique to rich countries, but it is generated there on a different scale. In poorer countries, wastage is a luxury indulged in only by a wealthy minority. Re-use and recycling are a way of life, and many survive by scouring garbage for scraps.

Even so, the average person in a developing country produces in a lifetime 149 times their own bodyweight in municipal and industrial waste. This is multiplied by a factor of almost seven for the typical European and on average a factor of 26 for a North American. If other wastes from mining, dredging, building, and sewage were included, the Western totals would more than quadruple.

The US is the largest consumer of natural resources in the world, and more than 50 per cent of paper, 75 per cent of glass, 40 per cent of aluminium, and 25 per cent of plastics consumed in the US goes into packaging.

Mounting piles of garbage are now a regular feature of the landscape in developed nations and in some parts of developing ones.

Aluminium, plastic, and other relatively new substances increasingly displace natural, biodegradable materials. Landfills, the traditional method of disposal, often leak, releasing into ground-water substances that may be toxic. The decay of garbage in oxygen-starved dumps also produces methane gas, which is both a fire hazard and a contributor to global warming. Incineration, an alternative means of dealing with some categories of waste, has its own environmental drawbacks, such as the release of toxic dioxins.

The new scale and character of waste means that existing landfills are overwhelmed. Yet most governments continue to focus on storing rather than reducing waste.



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Copyright 1996, The World Wide Fund For Nature