28 February 2009

Transforming Trash ~ Economist Surveys Waste

Once again another timely and important Special Report from the Economist, this time on the global waste industry...
"Rubbish may be universal, but it is little studied and poorly understood. Nobody knows how much of it the world generates or what it does with it. In many rich countries, and most poor ones, only the patchiest of records are kept. That may be understandable: by definition, waste is something its owner no longer wants or takes much interest in. [...] Yet many also see waste as an opportunity. Getting rid of it all has become a huge global business. Rich countries spend some $120 billion a year disposing of their municipal waste alone and another $150 billion on industrial waste, according to CyclOpe, a French research institute. The amount of waste that countries produce tends to grow in tandem with their economies, and especially with the rate of urbanisation. So waste firms see a rich future in places such as China, India and Brazil, which at present spend only about $5 billion a year collecting and treating their municipal waste. Waste also presents an opportunity in a grander sense: as a potential resource..."
Indeed, the tremendous business opportunities in transforming trash lead me to think of today's waste dumps as tomorrow's gold mines. And that's not only for solid waste, but also water and sanitation, as I've written about in Waste Matters and Bio-Latrines. But not all trash smells like roses, some dumping practices really stink, including the scandalous use of developing countries as Global Junkyards. FYI, the references at the end of the Economist's report are first class. Bottom line: waste management really matters because otherwise our kids will face a world that looks like Naples, the dumpcity of Italy...

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