h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Waste - the issue - A3607940
Author: sprout - U192568

After the fun and frolics of my last entry, I suspect this one might raise little interest.

It's a big topic, so I've kept it simple.

sprout

Nice Entry sprout, on something we're all reposible for producing.

I've only had a quick look, you've got a 'broken link' 'My oldman's a binman' I think you meant 'My old Man's a Dustman'

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/lonnie_donegan/my_old_mans_a_dustman.html

The lyrics, for anyone not old enough to remember it, including me.

Emmily

Thanks Emmily

I'll correct that a bit later on.



sprout

Nice entry. Mind you, I thought your last entry was a valiant if questionable attempt to recycle something of value from some old cultural garbage.

Two comments:
* The genus name in Homo sapiens is capitalised.
* You might like to compare the approach taken in different countries to recycling. The UK is way behind Germany, for instance, which to my knowledge has different kinds of garbage bin for different kinds of recyclable waste: glass, plastic, cardboard and metal. Anything that can be recycled goes into these bins, because the dustmen *weigh* the 'additonal 'garbage' bin that each household fills and charge accordingly.

It gets my

Broken link mended, title of song modified.

New para on recycling culture in Germany etc added.

Glad you like this one better FM.



sprout

Did the old one get accepted? I thought it best to duck out of that melee so I unsubscribed.

Yep. Somewhat precipitously in fact, so I never got the chance to add Edward's extra material on Apartheid resistance - I'll ask the sub-ed nicely.

sprout

Well, obviously I stood in a minority of one. I just didn't like the subject matter: there was nothing personal involved, you understand.

Sure - I just put it down as one on which we had to agree to disagree.

sprout

Sorry sprout, don't know if it's just me, but I'm getting a different error page now on 'My old Man's a Dustman' link (HTTP 404 not found)

Emmily

Yes - I've started getting an error for that one too, and then I swapped it for your suggestion and I still get an error...

I'll leave it 24 hours, see if it's a temporary thing.

sprout

Hiya, good stab at a difficult subject.

I would recommend firstly that a definition of "hazardous waste" be made. After all, everything is hazardous to a certain extent or other, but in the context of waste management, the definition takes on different meaning usually defined by some governing body (like the EPA in the US, not sure what it is in the EU or even if there is one for the entire Union or if its left up to individual countries/areas).

"Of the total waste, 535kg of domestic waste per person per year." is a fragment (1st paragraph of second section).

"Making paper from recovered paper saves energy and hence CO2, in comparison to making it from trees." (Item 1 in first section) ... this seems to be saying that saving energy leads to saving CO2 - I think you mean that it lessens the amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions by requiring less industrial production in general (though how this results from paper making is somewhat confusing - paper making isn't an intensive CO2-emitting industrial process). Perhaps you refer to the fact that there will be more trees left by recycling paper rather than cutting more of them down, and that this fact should have some impact on global CO2 levels. In any event, the statement you have is rather confusing, IMHO.

"...annual turnover of $US 160 billion..." I guess it's because I'm a speaker of US English, but this is amiguous to me - do you mean the recycling business generates that much revenue or is it the estimate cost of the World's recycling activities on the global economy? One observes that recycling is greatly subsidized by government (in most western countries, anyway) and thus is funded by taxes rather than on pure profit generated from the recycled product. This is, of course, highly dependent on the material being recycled (i.e. paper/plastics vs. many metals). I like the way you get to this subject later on, but I'm not sure I understand quite what this phrase here means.

Under the "Landfill It" section, you say, "Landfills in the EU must now take only one type of waste (hazardous, inert, or other) must be separated from the water table and must have equipment to collect the methane coming off the biodegradable waste." I'm confused what you're saying there - one type of waste goes in a landfill, but then you list three types (arguable with "other" you list everything ) which I assume you meant to be part of the (2nd) sentence regarding being separated. Probably just grammar, but it's a little confusing what you mean.

Under the Don't Buy Bottled Water subject, you raise this point, "If you don't like the taste of your tap water, a filter is a more economic, efficient and green option than bottled water." I know of a lot of environmentalists (especially here in New Mexico, USA, where our tap water is extremely high in mineral content) that would take issue with this statement. Bottled water undergoes the same processing equivalent of filtration and ion-exchange that a home system would, but on a larger and more efficient scale. Further, the IX resins used are generally better maintained and regenerated by the large scale commercial water purifiers than by individual home systems. This is not a fault of the home systems themselves, but of the people who buy them and then don't maintain them. Arguably, the local governments could provide much cleaner, better-tasting water, (by, of course, raising water costs to the public) using the same processes the commercial water purifiers do, but the problem then returns to what you brought up - what about those who don't want to pay more $ for what they consider already a decent product (i.e. good enough water)? In short, I think this is a misleading and convoluted issue.

Such it is with nearly everything "environmental" and/or climate related. I'm merely pointing out that much of your article is the subject of this sort of contentious and different viewpoints. But then, I'm sure you knew that when you set out. I like the links section - there is an awful lot of information out there - and I understand that you're relying on the links to provide more detailed pros/cons of the many issues involved with the huge topic of anthropogenic waste, but I was left feeling a vaguely confused and uninformed after reading the article. Not terribly so, but it didn't really tell me anything more about the pros/cons of the issues you raised (which were something of a confusing cross-section or cross-selection in the first place) than I had as a teenager years ago before learning more about environmental issues at college and in my professional career. Particularly missing (I thought) was any discussion about hazardous waste (per EPA definition) that gets commonly thrown out by people at home and/or at smaller businesses. I know you mentioned the problem with small businesses somewhere, but I didn't see it mentioned under the "what can I do" heading.

I realize I might be asking for you to make it more complicated an entry than you want, but it seems to me that you could include more information about the subjects and issues you raise in their respective subsections rather than leave it all up to other links.

In any event, it's a decent article on its own as an overview. Maybe I should just shut up now.

- JD

Hi JD

Many thanks for commenting in detail - very interesting to get a US take on this issue, to make me think about my euro-centric viewpoint!

I'll take your points one by one:



Definition of hazardous waste - in the EU we have a list based on hazardousness criteria. So that's no good - I think for the layman's guide to waste that this aims to be, I'll give a few examples and explain.



Recovered paper and CO2 - what I meant here is that the pulp and paper industry requires much less energy (in the production process) to make a kilo of new paper from recovered paper than it does from trees - so less energy used, less CO2 produced. Energy use is a significant issue in the pulp and paper production life cycle.



Annual turnover of recycling/recovery industry - this I took straight out of an OECD report, but as far as I am aware it is revenue generated. It probably includes various forms of subsidy, but this is true for many businesses right? (I'm thinking agriculture, steel ) The majority of recycling activities in the EU are now self financing post consumer collection costs. If you take into account that the collectivity would have to dispose of it if it wasn't recycled, the numbers look quite good. I'll footnote some of the above.



Landfill - I'll try and make this clearer.



Bottled water - I found this fascinating - in the EU context, from the environmental point of view, bottled versus tap water is a no-brainer - the transport costs with such a bulky product, the packaging, compared with opening a tap and drinking water that has been cleaned to be safe to drink... Many people here still drink tap water, thankfully.

Home filtering is a non-issue here. So, who is the exception and who is the rule? I'll have another look, and at least I'll footnote your suggestion.



Hazardous waste - you're right, I should add a section on not pouring waste oil down the drain, disposing properly of paints etc.

I'll also add a bit more on the history of waste consciousness, the incredible disappearing Seveso waste scandal, waste dumping, waste and organised crime If you have any US anecdotes, or indeed a description of the US waste system, I would welcome that. I'll try and add the Massachussets toxic waste reduction programme, one of the pioneers.

I don't want to make it too long though Tricky getting the balance between sophistication and clarity right.

Thanks again,

sprout

OK - added a chunk of stuff. Happy to add more where people think a particular topic would be of interest - as waste is my day job, it's difficult for me to have enough distance to add more detailed stuff that might interest the hootoo punter.

sprout

There is an Edited Entry on Wheelie Bins - A480278 Don't know if you want to use it sprout.

Emmily

Very good entry. Good advice that takes the time to explain why.

Anyone else, though, think that this is Euro-specific enough to warrant the title 'Waste in the EU'? I think 98% of it is generally information everyone could use, but sentences like "In the EU, we produce 1.3 billion tonnes of waste each year." make me wonder.

Just a thought.

Jodan - nice to see you around the site again.

I'll try to make it a bit less Euro-centric, rather than change the title - it's not like anyone is going to write lots more articles about waste is it? I'm not even sure why I wrote this one...

sprout

"Definition of hazardous waste - in the EU we have a list based on hazardousness criteria. So that's no good - I think for the layman's guide to waste that this aims to be, I'll give a few examples and explain."

Unfortunately, the terms you use to describe "hazardous waste" are unfamiliar and amiguous to many people. I've never seen "eco-toxic" defined clearly or at least consistently, and the terms "persistent" and "bio-accumlative" are specialized terms that may not be understood in the manner you use them (though I happen to understand them, I've been professionally involved in environmental remediation at some point in my career - not so with everyone). This may very well be second nature to an EU citizen, and that leads me to my only real comment: I agree with Jodan. This article should be retitled to "Waste Management in the EU" or something like that, since it really is EU-specific in most respects.

Energy use in paper-making - you could still be clearer on what you're saying here. The common misconception that recycling paper saves trees could be described (sustainable forests are maintained by replanting trees, though ecosystem impact is still a factor - not germain to this argument, this is more of an issue with increased demand and population increase than anything else). You could clarify that it is the pulping process that requires the most energy and that using post-consumer waste (PCW) paper significantly reduces the amount of energy needed to pulp paper and bleach the raw material (depends on location, but some places don't use chlorine bleaching for PCW, which is potentially less harmful). Recycling PCW reduces paper waste in landfills, thus reducing the methane emissions (a greenhouse gas, and a bad one) - something to be noted under "what can I do at home/small business" I'm sure.

"Bottled water - I found this fascinating - in the EU context, from the environmental point of view, bottled versus tap water is a no-brainer - the transport costs with such a bulky product, the packaging, compared with opening a tap and drinking water that has been cleaned to be safe to drink... Many people here still drink tap water, thankfully. Home filtering is a non-issue here. So, who is the exception and who is the rule?"

Well ... that's just it, who is the exception and who is the rule depends entirely on where you're located. In the vast expanse of the USA (and much of the Americas in general, North and South) bottled water can be a necessity rather than luxury. Recognizing that you're being specific to industrialized, "Western" nations (an abused term if ever there was one), let's just say you're thinking of the USA here alone. While it is true that most people have tap water of some sort throughout the USA that meets or exceeds drinking water standards, it is also true that throughout the large deserts of the west and southwest water comes from underground via wells (either industrial-sized or individual household wells). All this means that the water comes with a huge mineral content, especially calcium and sometimes magnesium - these are not necessarily toxic, but can be bad-tasting in such concentrations. The other problem is that these minerals cause rapid degeneration of metal piping and plumbing, which is a big reason for filtering/purification of the household rather than bottling. This can be managed with diligent application of acidic treatments of one's tap heads - I've done this quite frequently myself, but boiling tap and shower heads in white vinegar gets old quickly. In short, purified water is big business as is home filtering and/or purification. My point was that, in the USA, it's often better to buy bottled water and recycle the plastic it comes in than to try to maintain a home filtering system. I could have gone on to state that home purification (not filtering) saves wear and tear and the need for preventive maintenance on one's plumbing, but it seemed too long - I just did that here to point out that it's really more complicated in other parts of the world. The footnote you put in seems to suggest that waste treatment facilities purify drinking water. This is not the case as far as I know, anywhere in the USA. Waste treatment effluent water meets entirely different standards than drinking water - I sure wouldn't drink it!

"Annual turnover of recycling/recovery industry - this I took straight out of an OECD report, but as far as I am aware it is revenue generated. It probably includes various forms of subsidy, but this is true for many businesses right?"

I agree that revenue, in general, may include gov't subsidy. However, my limited business education leads me to understand that the term "turnover" refers to volume of business performed or inventory sold. Since we're talking about a recycled product here, and since the units are $US (sort of a strange choice of units, given the EU-centric bulk of the article - what's the OECD anyway?), this "turnover" seems to express some snapshot market value of the sum total of global recycled goods, obviously estimated. This would hardly be considered revenue unless one assumes all recycled product was sold. It's these sorts of things that can exaggerate and confuse the issue, I'm afraid, and that's what I was getting at. It is indeed big business, but by playing the devil's advocate there I was able to drag a red herring into the entire point. Gov't subsidy doesn't matter at all in that number, which was the point of having it. Maybe clarifying what you mean - that global recycling generates that much $US worth of goods and employs that many people. I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but I want to show how easy it is to get confused knee-jerk reactions (such as I imitated) simply due to misunderstanding of terms. This is what almost breaks down international treaties and government policies, so it's quite important.

"I don't want to make it too long though - Tricky getting the balance between sophistication and clarity right."

This is true. However, I believe in erring on the side of giving too much information than too little. I fear I am in the tiny minority these days, and it is (IMHO) a great failing of our fast-information culture these days to be overy brief and say things without actually explaining them. In any event, the article is a good stab at condensing some of the main waste and recycling issues in the EU, but it's very general and shouldn't be thought of as a comprehensive look at waste issues elsewhere in the World. Waste and pollution are different but related topics for example, as well as anthropogenic effects on climate and the use of the term "hazardous" in this context. Every substance in the world is, after all, hazardous in and of itself - it is certain properties that cause different effects on the environment and thus our livelihoods that make substances have different definitions in the ecological, waste-management, recycling, safety, industrial, and regulatory settings (just to name a few).

Well. I've said quite a lot. I'm sure everyone would like me to get off my horse and be done with it. And here I go ...

- JD (if you think this is convoluted, you should try nuclear industrial safety compliance...)

The b-key seems to be elude me whenever I try to type the word "ambiguous."

- JD

Thanks again JD

I really don't want to change the title.

1) As far as I can see, no one is queuing up to write more waste articles.
2) If I call it 'waste management in the EU', no-one will read it. I wouldn't read it, and that's what I do for a living... 'waste - the issue' is moderately more interesting.
3) There is quite a bit that is general to waste wherever it is - to that end, I've added a new section on waste in the developing world.

Other than that, I defined my hazardous waste terms, and dealt with some of the other small points.

If I make it any longer, it'll end up getting split into two articles, and I can't think of an elegant way to do this.

So I'd like to leave it there, really.

sprout