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By the 1980s, the international community launched treaty negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme. In March 1989, they adopted the Basel Convention on the Control [..]
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A visual timeline of historical waste manaement. From the first recorded landfill created in Knossos in 3000 B.C. to the English parliament banning waste disposal in public waterways and ditches in [..]
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A multitude of approaches exists to classify the various categories of waste. Waste can be sorted either by its origin (what activity has created it?), by its composition
(what is it made of?), by [..]
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At Beddington, south of London, a housing development known as BedZED (Beddington Zero energy development) was designed from the start to produce little waste of any sort. It was built on a depolluted [..]
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It is impossible to detail all the types of waste directly or indirectly involved in manufacturing mobile phones. In developed countries production processes manage to keep
sensitive materials in a [..]
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The impact of income on lifestyle is apparent in China like elsewhere. There has been a massive surge in all consumer
goods with rising income in towns. The same trend can be observed to a much [..]
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The marketing and advertising industry is constantly teasing
us with trendy, cool and largely superfluous products.
To judge by investment in advertising, it takes more and
more to achieve the same [..]
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Curitiba has become world-famous for its original approach
to basic municipal problems thanks to a unique mixture of
innovative town planning, determined political leadership
and good public [..]
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Curitiba has become world-famous for its original approach
to basic municipal problems thanks to a unique mixture of
innovative town planning, determined political leadership
and good public [..]
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According to current forecasts the world’s energy requirements will have risen by more than 50 per cent by 2030. Oil and natural gas will account for more than 60 per cent of the increase. During the [..]
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Waste is a major environmental concern for the energy sector. Depending on the type of energy, the production process itself will generate substantial quantities of waste. The energy sector generates [..]
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The priority is to decrease the amount of waste we generate.
Only then should we will be proud of the high rates for
recycling some countries report (see examples for glass
and paper). Glass [..]
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Several trends characterise modern consumer goods. Our appetite for them continues to grow, with product ranges growing too. Meanwhile the average lifespan of many products is shortening. 80% of what [..]
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In Europe the manufacturing sector produces large amounts of hazardous waste. This graphic shows the ratio between the manufacturing sector and all other sectors in selected European countries from [..]
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At the entrance to the plant, which covers more than 15 hectares, a sign announces:“Compost, bark and wood shavings for sale”. Other waste is separated, packed and redirected
to logistics centres [..]
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The plant is designed to restrict waste movement and environmental damage. Strict safety regulations govern storage of hazardous waste (chemicals, asbestos, varnish, oil, etc.). Such waste is not [..]
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The list of products we used to keep for years and now
dispose of instantly is almost endless: tissues, face wipes,
razors, kitchen wipes, serviettes, nappies, plastic bags,
toner cartridges, [..]
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In 1999, the British consultant BioRegional thought up an innovative way of dealing with waste paper. Surely offices could sort their own paper and, after local reprocessing, reuse it? Local Paper for [..]
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In 2005 household waste output was up by 10 000 tonnes on 2000, rising from 15 000 to 25 000 tonnes for almost the
same population. Nor does this include 20 000 tonnes of business waste [..]
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Combating waste trafficking demands international cooperation and a high-level of scientific expertise (to analyse the composition of waste, for instance). This is primarily the task of customs and [..]
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One person’s dustbin is not the same as another’s. Depending on which continent you live on, on your life style, financial resources, and so on, your trash will be different. This shows two cases from [..]
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The maps illustrate the crazy logic of today’s global trade. Exchange is no longer based on local needs or resource availability (in most countries where large amounts of bottled water are consumed, [..]
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Unscrupulous waste trade became a serious concern in the 1980s due to three converging factors: increasing amounts of hazardous waste; inadequate processing plants; and stricter regulations in the [..]
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![Major merchandise ports [and likely waste transit points]](/library/files/major_merchandise_ports_and_likely_waste_transit_points_thumbnail.jpg)
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Some countries, for example the Netherlands and Belgium, seem to act as “waste dispatchers”. Their figures suggest that they are the top waste exporters, a fact that reflects neither the waste they [..]
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Mining waste takes up a great deal of space, blights the
landscape and often affects local habitats. By its very nature it can constitute a serious safety hazard. Poor management may allow acidic and [..]
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At 29 per cent of total wastes generated and with over
400 million tonnes of materials, mining and quarrying
account for the largest stream of waste generated
by countries that are members of the [..]
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PRTRs (Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers) are databases of chemical releases to air, land and water from factories or other sources. Targeting a broad public audience, they support our right to [..]
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The production of aluminium involves three main stages: mining bauxite ore, refining bauxite to alumina (Al2O3), and then smelting alumina to produce aluminium. Bauxite comes from open mines mainly [..]
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Mobile phones were launched in 1984 and the market has
been booming ever since. In 20 years they have spread like
wildfire. By September 2004 there were 344 million subscribers (out of a population [..]
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More than three-quarters of nuclear reactors currently in
service are more than 20 years old. After an average service
life of 30 years it takes 20 more years to dismantle them.
The spent fuel [..]
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Scrapped cars or “end-of life vehicles” are not collected
as bulky waste, but they too pose problems because of their size and disparate components. Given car production trends this is an issue that [..]
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At the end of their service life airliners may prove useful in many ways. They often fly as freighters for several years. When finally grounded they are scavenged for spare parts for other aircrafts, [..]
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According to Residua, a UK company working on solid waste issues, about 50 per cent of European goods are wrapped in plastic (17 per cent by weight). There are many types of plastic packaging: plastic [..]
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The manufacture of packaging itself generates waste and by defi nition it has a particularly short lifespan. It turns into waste as soon as its contents reaches its destination. This is certainly a [..]
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Though it is based on wood, a natural renewable resource, the pulp and paper industry is one of the worst sources of pollution. It absorbs more than 40 per cent of all timber felled worldwide. Despite [..]
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Statistics from the Paper Task Force show virgin paper (from tree harvesting to the landfill) versus and recycled paper (from collection to recycling again) and their respective environmental impacts [..]
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The rich world consumes more and thus produces more waste. The World Bank classification based on gross national income per capita is an indication of the global consumption level. Over the last two [..]
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The Soviet Union used the Ferghana Valley as one of its
main sources of metal and uranium ore. The area has many
nuclear waste storage sites, abandoned uranium mines
with poorly secured tailing [..]
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Reusing and recycling are natural survival strategies for many people in the developing world. In rich countries we abandoned the habit and are now relearning how to reuse and recycle. Public rubbish [..]
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Once a product is manufactured and ready to be sold, it
must be distributed. To protect it from dirt and shocks, to
make it easier to store, but also to make it look appealing,
a whole science has [..]
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A few recent changes in national and international regulations provoked a massive drop in the tonnage of ships being broken up and major shifts in the shipbreaking market. Bangladeshi shipbreaking [..]
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As garbage piles up, however much space we set aside for landfill, we are beginning to realise that producing waste at this rate is no longer viable. It is time for the three “Rs”: Reduce, Reuse, [..]
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Why would any country import goods already produced at home or nearby? One explanation is straight forward: It may be cheaper to buy abroad than produce locally or the necessary know-how is not [..]
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Despite international efforts to halt dumping of illegal waste outrageous incidents occur. Collating relevant data is difficult but there is no doubt about the damage. Toxic waste causes long-term [..]
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Describing and quantifying global trade in waste is difficult. The official figures compiled by the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal [..]
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Industry is the top producer of waste in developed countries. A large proportion of industrial waste is hazardous, because industrial processes often involve chemicals. Cleaner production – reducing [..]
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The squares are proportionnal to the estimated amounts of waste generated by sector in 2002, in the OECD countries (in million tonnes). Waste is produced from the very beginning of the life cycle of a [..]
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In the 1980s severe hygienic problems plagued parts of
Curitiba where housing development was uncontrolled. The
winding streets were too narrow for council trucks and waste
rotting in the open [..]
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Not long ago the amount and composition of waste was such that it could be simply diluted and dispersed into the environment. Most items were reused and only a few remained, that would not decompose [..]
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In Buenos Aires informal waste collectors recover 9 to 17 per cent of municipal waste, representing an estimated
saving for the municipality of US$30 000 to US$70 000 a
day or US$3.5 to US$7 per [..]
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A growing share of municipal waste contains electronic or
electric products. E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams and makes up approximately 4 per cent of municipal waste in the [..]
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Recognizing that industrial society must fix this major flaw in the system, governments and many forward-looking companies started exploring solutions as early as the 1970s. The strong activism of [..]
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The goods we accumulate today will pile up as waste tomorrow, and more yet in view of the global trends. Projections tell us that there will be 9 000 million people on Earth by 2050. According to the [..]
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