Nowadays we live in a fast-growing, profit-oriented consumer-driven world with an infinite want for modern gadgets and simultaneously high consumption and spending on a daily basis. The Covid-19 pandemic has added an obligatory list of health and safety items, consequently, manufacturers immersed themselves to accomplish the production process that accelerated the trail to consumerism across the world. Again to meet up the increased production, the fast extraction of raw materials, processing, and transportation became a common practice. In the race of grabbing extraordinary profit the world's scarce resources, are being exploited ruthlessly in an unplanned manner and have dragged us closer to a severe climate crisis. Currently, climate change and its impact on human life is a serious concern and hot topic across the world.
The social media sites Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Academic research, News Media and sustainable influencers; Greta Thunberg, Stella McCartney, and Mark Ruffalo have initiated the natural calamities concerns fast reach to common mass and urged for a sudden change in the way they perceive. In addition, the Global events, Climate Strike, and the Economist's Sustainability Summits also took place and worked as a pressure factor. It is anticipated that the ongoing Covid-19 crisis is also the result of ecosystem disturbance. Unfortunately, the awareness of the common people, interest, and willingness on climate change and recycling practices are still not satisfactory. Above all the individual action and awareness on environmental sustainability is not encouraging too.
We cannot deny the fact that today's modern urbanized lifestyle has intensified the demand for packed and processed food and drink that requires multilayered metalized/plastic packaging and more shelf life, especially in the humid weather regions of the world. The new inventions and information technology advancement has made the accessibility and affordability of IT tools of numerous kinds to the general mass but is also generating piles of e-waste in households and workplaces.
Consequently, the waste management system is struggling to cope up with the management of the bulk of hazardous and nonhazardous wastes and needs wider landfill area and customized technology, a big challenge to all. Moreover, the disposing of the Covid-19 related needs; face mask, hand gloves (commonly used PPE) are the additional toil, and around 45.50% mask and 31.60% hand gloves were disposed everywhere. In some countries, these are seen floating in the sea and beaches and lack proper regulations and guidelines for their safe disposal.
A study claimed, as of 2017, 20 rivers around the world led to 67% of the plastic waste that ends up in the oceans. According to World Economic Forum, scientists are predicting that if nothing changes in our plastic consumption habits, there will be more plastic waste in the oceans than there are fish by 2050. On an average, individuals emit 6.6 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2) per capita and per year and 100 companies are responsible for 71% of CO2, the biggest players in the carbon footprints.
A World Bank study says global annual waste generation is expected to jump to 3.4 billion tones over the next 30 years. High-income countries that account for 16% of the world's population, are generating more than 34 % of the world's waste whereas the East Asia and Pacific region is responsible for close to 23 % of all wastes. Across the US, landfills are piling up at an alarming rate. There is evidence of developed countries' export of wastes, especially plastics, packaging materials, and used garments to developing countries and mostly the local communities involvement in processing by burning or unhygienic recycling endured them with harmful health impact along with the risk to natural habitat.
The practice of open dumps across several developing countries (in Asia especially) and sanitary landfills in most developed countries are widely visible. Open dumps leak wastes into the surrounding environment rivers that lead to oceans. In early 2018, China banned the import of some plastics and other materials headed for recycling processors from developed countries created a backlog of recyclable goods across the globe, and forced the concerned countries to landfill recyclables. The lack of resources and technology of recycling across the countries has made this a gigantic crisis.
A significant role can also be played by individuals across the various contexts in which they consume and use materials and waste disposal. As a measure, demand chain management could be a thought to be considered. Consumers should be aware and educated about the whole process- from buying a product to the shelf life to final disposing off, especially for consumer durables. Similarly, manufacturers have massive environmental footprints so the end of product disposal facilitation/collection, if any, could be part of supply chain management. Adoption of sustainable waste practices in the workplace is also a need of time.
Nonetheless, there are few silver linings, the changing behaviours among people, for instance in North America, consumers who have easy access to recycling are 25% more likely to recycle, a recent survey claims nearly 40% of millennial have chosen a job at lower salary because of a company's sustainability mission in USA, some responsible consumers are making personal steps to address global environmental issues by shifting to plant based foods, repurposed products, and eco-friendly green products.
There are instances of best practices in recycling plastic waste in countries around the world as each year, tons of recyclable materials are collected and moved across the world. European countries are leading the way in recycling practices and were the first to discourage single-use products; plastic bags and straws and introduced incentive to promote the separation of wastes. In this regard, the EU has set the goal of recycling 65% of household waste in 2030.
Regarding country initiatives, 'From Waste to Energy' program of Sweden, 'the path to Zero waste' of Japan, 'Reutilization and Sustainability' of the Netherlands are some of the notable initiatives of recycling. A case of successful local partnerships can be seen in Indonesia, where Plastic Bank initiated to help informal waste collectors and build recycling hubs partnered with Gojek. After the implementation of door-to-door recycling collection, the recycling rate increased in Shanghai, China by 12.5%.
Waste might turn our problem into an opportunity and it is estimated that up to 75% of all the waste can be recycled or repurposed. According to the EPA, "recycling and reuse" activities accounted for 681,000 jobs in one year. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, the three golden rules of sustainability, are truly favourable to humans and the environment. To make it a reality, manufacturers and designers have to rethink the way they perceive raw materials. Growing populations and increased regulations are driving organizations and citizens to make recycling and reuse practices key parts of their business. Unfortunately understanding how to promote more sustainable behaviours across a range of contexts remains a key challenge for policy-makers and researchers. Therefore, the universities, colleges, schools could play active role and become the pioneer in educating responsibly to the communities toward the reuse and recycling.
Dr Pinki Shah (PhD) "Professor,
USB, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)
