Waste

In our complex world of many different interests, activities and systems humanity is confronted daily with the need to make choices. Some choices are relatively insignificant (which cup for my coffee) while others can be quite impactful (moving to a different part of the world). We constantly make choices all day and every day: choosing to repeat a habit or maybe doing a normal task quite differently or not at all; what to wear or what not to wear; riding along a different route commuting to work, school, home; deciding to grow a beard or cutting short the long hair of adolescence; taking up a different sport or trying to learn to play a piano; voting in an election; deciding which book to read next; wearing a mask or not; choosing a holiday destination; throwing a coffee cup or beer can out the car window.

So, this short essay is about choices, but more particularly it is about our choice, individually or collectively, to waste or to allow waste to occur.

The scale and consequential costs in dollars associated with waste are huge. So too the degrading environmental impacts have grown in scale beyond the ability of sinks to absorb and the degradation will most certainly become worse before real scaled up  improvements are achieved.

Why does humanity create waste? There is one simple answer, no, two simple answers to the question. A very long time ago humanity began to create tools and useful products. The vast majority of production processes have as a by-product waste, some processes more or less of it. Some of the waste is diverted to other processes for the production of other products and in turn those processes cause waste. Very few processes have little or no waste and whatever product is being created probably fails at some point and unless reused or directed to new product processes, it will become waste. So humanity produces and causes waste. 

The second answer is more interesting and concerns values and ethics. As I mentioned above humanity can make choices and it is the drivers of those choices where the waste issue really lies. In this respect the question needs to be re-worded to ask: What does humanity do with the waste it creates? This is where our values, attitudes and ethical choices come into play. We have options, but clearly ‘produce no waste’ seems to be a low priority. In this regard it is useful to recognize a little more specifically where in society the waste is generated: resource extraction; agriculture; wide range of manufacturing industrial processes; transportation sector; the retail sector; forestry; institutional; hospitality; product end of life; health care; domestic; sewage from an exploded population; emissions from all sectors; and other sources.

So, the waste streams, no, waste rivers, lakes and mountains come from all sectors of society, more from some than others. Why do we create all the waste? The sad truth is as a society we allow it to happen and it does happen because we apparently have other higher valued priorities. It is a choice we make, have made and in 2020 continue to make. Consider these reasons for our waste generation, in no particular order: we try to maximize gain while waste treatment and elimination is considered a cost to be avoided or minimized; shortfall of moral and ethical responsibility and minimal respect for environment and humanity affected by the waste; belief that waste really does not matter but, if the waste becomes a problem then someone will clean it up; technology and adequate resources not available to properly dispose of the waste or redirect it into a reuse opportunity; belief that nature will clean it up; lazy; not enough penalty to compel; individually or collectively uncaring; act or result of waste creation being remote or hidden from view/awareness and therefore shame will not arise.

No doubt other reasons lead to the creation and poor management of waste, but in the end there really is no sound excuse for waste and humanity’s neglect. No one and no entity should be allowed to walk away from their responsibility to make the right decisions at the outset of their activity through to the final cleanup. Unfortunately society and governments have been more interested in the jobs being created and the wealth generated for their jurisdictions. What is left behind after the rush is over? Here are some examples: thousands of abandoned oil wells; destroyed landscape and polluted water around and downstream from mine sites; dead zones in our seas; plastic adrift in our seas; seriously diminished soil health; toxic emissions in the atmosphere, soil, water and in all life; a global climate in the throes of change with a host of other consequences affecting life and societal infrastructure.

Prevention is not a high priority. We react, eventually, when the issue becomes palpable. Time and again late engagement has proven wholly inadequate and very costly. To prevent, our values, attitudes and beliefs must be overhauled. Humanity generally (certainly there are exceptions) is wasteful. Indeed we have designed waste into our societal systems, at great cost. Today we must undertake a redesign including putting a price tag on every form of pollution in the form of upfront bonds. We cannot afford to allow individuals and entities to flagrantly abuse and then just walk away when it suits them. We make choices and this is one choice desperately needed.