How does waste affect the world?
Air pollution, climate change, soil and water contamination…
Poor waste management contributes to climate change and air pollution, and directly affects many ecosystems and species. Landfills, considered the last resort in the waste hierarchy, release methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas linked to climate change.
Compared to those in developed nations, residents in developing countries, especially the urban poor, are more severely impacted by unsustainably managed waste. In low-income countries, over 90% of waste is often disposed in unregulated dumps or openly burned.
It is often cheaper for developed countries to ship containers of plastic waste halfway around the world to be “recycled” in developing countries than to deal with the trash themselves.
- Use a reusable bottle/cup for beverages on-the-go. ...
- Use reusable grocery bags, and not just for groceries. ...
- Purchase wisely and recycle. ...
- Compost it! ...
- Avoid single-use food and drink containers and utensils. ...
- Buy secondhand items and donate used goods.
Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance which is discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value.
Plastic pollution damages people's livelihoods
Farmers are impacted by the loss of livestock, who mistake plastic litter for food and eat it. Once consumed, plastic doesn't decompose. It can lead to bloating, a host of adverse health effects and eventually death by starvation.
Dumps and landfills are the general choice for disposing of solid waste in developing countries because these are the cheapest options, despite their future human health and soil and water pollution costs.
Many of the world's highest waste generation rates per person are found in developing island nations, where tourism plays a large role. Scarcity of land—the critical resource for landfilling (or dumping)—makes these countries' waste disposal problems especially acute.
Because the economies of developing countries are usually not as robust as the economies of countries such as the United States, people in these poorer countries tend to buy fewer products with less packaging, and they produce less waste than Americans or residents of other industrialized nations.
Poorly managed waste is contaminating the world's oceans, clogging drains and causing flooding, transmitting diseases, increasing respiratory problems from burning, harming animals that consume waste unknowingly, and affecting economic development such as through tourism.
How does waste affect climate change?
Our Wasteful Impact on Climate Change
Solid waste contributes directly to greenhouse gas emissions through the generation of methane from the anaerobic decay of waste in landfills, and the emission of nitrous oxide from our solid waste combustion facilities.
Public Health
The more emissions that we produce due to how much trash we generate, affects us long term. One can develop diseases such as asthma, birth defects, cancer, cardiovascular disease, childhood cancer, COPD, infectious diseases, low birth weight, and preterm delivery.
Tons of waste dumped on the planet
Every year we dump a massive 2.12 billion tons of waste on the planet. If all this waste was put on trucks they would go around the world 24 times.