The world is garbage and we're talking trash in this week's episode. With so many people consuming so many products all across the world there's bound to be some questions about all that refuse we're creating. What really happens when you throw something away? Is recycling as green as we think it is? Just how much garbage are we making anyway? All this answered and so much more as we find ourself waist deep in the world of waste.
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(This is a machine generated transcript. We'll fix it soon!)
[0:04] I'm David Torcivia.
[0:07] Daniel Forkner.
[0:08] And this is Ashes Ashes, a show about systemic issues, cracks in civilization, collapse of the environment, and if we're unlucky the end of the world.
[0:19] But if we learn from all of this, maybe we can stop that. The world might be broken, but it doesn't have to be.
[0:31] In 1957 a girl was born in Guangdong a Southeastern Chinese Province bordering Hong Kong. She grew up modestly first working for a paper trading company in Shenzhen in her early 20s, but eventually making her way up to an accounting position in Hong Kong at the time a bustling Center for business and trade determined to become an entrepreneur herself, and opened a paper making factory in Hong Kong, and much of China's Forest were cleared during the Great Leap Forward and the cultural revolution between 1958 and 1976 to make way for agricultural land and this meant that, most paper in China had to be produced from bamboo rice stalk or by diluting pulp with water. And so consequently paper quality was poor in China compared to the American version made from solid wood pulp.
[1:27] This reality provided jong-eun with a sense of opportunity. And in 1990 at the age of 33 to decided to leverage her knowledge of the Chinese paper business and take a leap of faith by moving to Los Angeles USA, there she and her husband drove a van from landfills to scrap yard purchasing bales of American Scrap paper for cheap, and shipping them back to Hong Kong for sale as a recycling input for better quality paper production, she formalized this operation into a company that quickly grew to own several collection centers purchasing scrap paper for $30 a ton, what she would then sell back home at $100 a ton after shipping them for cheap in Chinese shipping containers having been emptied from importing sneakers and other Goods on the US poor. This business model was so successful the jungle and decided to vertically integrate her business she moved back to Hong Kong in 1995 and opened her own paper factories once again but this time using the inputs that she shipped from the US and under a new brand Nine Dragons paper the rest as they say is history, my 2007 Nine Dragons had 8300 employees 1.4 billion dollars in annual revenue. And it was one of the largest producers of containerboard and recycled paper products in the world today John is the fourth richest woman in China.
[2:57] This episode brought to you by Nine Dragons paper for all your paper needs.
[3:02] Go to Nine Dragons. Com ashes ashes cast receive 10% all your containerboard products.
[3:09] It's what he dangled but it really does the sound like like we're just spitting out this giant a paper ad so I'm what what is this have to do with with the show topic today like where you taking this.
[3:22] What is the purpose of the story David and I mean what is just this this incredible narrative how one woman became one of the richest women in the world, by dealing in the trash business in recycled Goods in shipping the waste of one country in this case the United States to another country that can then use that for various things and.
[3:44] Animated nothing we love more on ashes ashes in a good bootstrap story.
[3:50] Right but you know another thing that the story highlights I think is, the purpose it which will get to the but I don't want to give the whole you no message way here but you only think about recycling what is it that we are often you know what is the motivation usually something green related right saving the planet. But we see that recycling as an industry plays an important role in making people rich and why that happens I think it's something worth questioning and what is the true. Purpose of this industry and is it really the green movement that we would like it to be but you know you going back to your original question David this show. Is about trash specifically the global trash and in Municipal solid waste that we. Consumers and producers around the world generate in our day-to-day lives and what we do with that trap.
[4:45] How appropriate a show about trash from your favorite trash hosts on your favorite trash podcast but end up self-deprecation there Daniel.
[4:55] At least we recycle material.
[4:57] Yeah I'd like we did unfortunately a couple of episodes ago, but today we're going to be learning about how recycling just like we did here on the show is often times a scam you aren't getting what you think we're going to really tear down this whole idea of trash and dig into it and explore all these things we don't think about. When you take your whatever you don't want throw it in the garbage can and ask a question what happens next. And this is really become a huge defining part of our modern civilization in the some of the problems we Face especially environmentally I mean how much do we talked about the plastic problems in the water I know we've had several episodes on them, huge amounts of pollutants that all this trash can cause the air pollution from burning trash or from the trash at self the methane released, which is a potent greenhouse gas from decaying trash all the stuff ties into so many separate parts of this show, but it's the sort of hidden underbelly is so much of our civilization and society and more than enough time has passed of us not addressing this thing that really underpins so much over talking about. So it slipped again.
[6:02] Speaking of perspectives on trash are we here in America David I think we do have a limited perspective on how trash disposal and collection can and should work. If you live in a suburb Prince's you're familiar with those big rolling bins issued by the local municipalities that you roll out to the curb once a week and then big trash trucks come and collect it all take it away, or if you're in the city maybe you throw your trash in a public dumpster or pile it up on the street for trash trucks to pick up, but this isn't how it's done everywhere Taiwan for example has a pretty unique way of dealing with Waste Management. So here in America we have dumpsters we have if you walk down the sidewalk of New York City or any.
[6:46] Yeah we just dump it out on the sidewalks there is no Fanfare about it there just piles of trash on the sidewalk as is the New York way. In our defense we do have one section Roosevelt Island has it is really amazing suction base trash system where there's basically shoots all over the island where you toss your trash in and it's whisked away to the central trash processing plant it was a threesome if you two separated it's only cereal separated and and takes it into whatever needs to be either burned recycle or disposed of Elsewhere and that is a really great example of what beautiful efficient trash question could be like the Roosevelt Island is small the system is expensive, and it's very impractical for large area even want to dance New York City.
[7:31] Yeah that's interesting Taiwan a small island nation this is another small area where they figured out the more efficient way of collecting trash, over there you won't find any Trash piled up on the streets like a New York but you won't even find those like public trash cans that you can throw your coffee cup into after you leave the shop and talk the way they collect trash they do have those big trash trucks except, they play nice classical music. And they show up twice and evening every weekday to the central location and when residents hear that music they know it's time to bring their trash down and in the bags they have and throw it in the truck, and again like I said this is unique because there are no public trash dumpsters or cans that means if you go to a coffee shop and you buy a coffee cup, you leave with that you got to take it home with you and then put it in your trash bag. Which is an interesting way to spread the cost of trash disposal in collections well because in order to dispose of your trash into these trucks, you have to purchase an official trash bag and you can do that in different sizes depending on how much waste do you generate so if you waste more you pay more, and in addition recycling bags are separate cost in the trucks that collect that they have multiple receptacles for different types of recyclable material and if you miss categorize those or if you do end up throwing your trash on the street that are Hefty fine.
[8:54] I'm just imagining these giant garbage trucks going down the street Daniel playing Pachelbel's Canon in D or something which is a hilarious and its butt.
[9:03] Motards for at least as well.
[9:04] Yeah it has become down but. One one thing is really apparent about this is I mean the things that are happening here aren't especially different in the end result is what's happening the United States but there's a lot of the processes that are more upfront and apparent to you the end-user I mean here. I trash ends when we wheeled trash can outside we don't have to think about what we're throwing in there this size amount of trash were thrown out like you mentioned. I'm guessing some municipalities you might have to pay more like say if you're disposing leaves they might require special. Lawn clipping bags or something to that effect maybe your municipality if your recycling needs separation or whatever. I will get that later but that's it that's where the thought ends everything is a sort of one-size-fits-all approach but what's happening in Taiwan. Is you are very aware of trash how much you're disposing your responsibility to make sure it gets where it needs to go, well see faces fines decontamination issue which is something will address later on this episode all the stuff is sort of immediately shifted to the end user so they're aware of it and maybe because they're aware of it then how much more conscious of the trash at using where is here we're just happy to throw things away disposal drop them on the street and never think about it again. And that may be part of the reason why we have such a throwaway culture and so many things and again will talk about more of that in a little bit.
[10:26] I don't know David all I know is that my trash trucks don't play classical music and that's a problem.
[10:32] It didn't play classical music here would be turkey in the straw coming down the street turkey in the straw. Just getting the truck just grab your cycling throw it in the back of Here Comes the garbage truck for your stuff pretty good. But my bad singing his side as long as we are talking about trash trucks we came across this funny story is reading all this in list. Articles about trash and reminder this is something we talked about a long time ago way back in episode 25. Where were the things we discussed was this very high temperatures of heat and that were starting to see in certain parts of the world I think we mentioned to UK we mention parts of the US especially Australia. This is mostly resulting from climate change one of the things that can cause is melting roads and, well we saw this topic come up with in this trash conversation and so last July a road in Newbury Berkshire had to be closed after a trash truck or bin Lorry as they call them in the UK sunken to the road most likely because the combination of the Searing temperatures that causes asphalt to soften up as well as the extreme weight of this heavily loaded in Lori as it was filled with trash.
[11:51] And as long as we're talking about the UK David we cannot forget to mention fridge Mountain.
[11:56] Oak Ridge Mountain tell me more.
[11:58] In 2002 the European Union put into effect a new rule that, old refrigerators that had those chlorofluorocarbons in there foam insulation could not be dumped in landfill since, those CFC chemicals would eventually be released and contribute to atmospheric ozone depletion which as we talked about with practically turn the Sun from a source of warm tanning rays of light into a radioactive killer of most life on the planet.
[12:26] I know it might be a little bit of exaggeration but I get to just keep going.
[12:30] I don't think so David but anyway Britain's did not realize until the last minute that this new rule would mean that they couldn't ship their old fridges to developing countries nor could they crush them up is that Within discriminately release of CFCs instead they would need high-tech fridge eating machines that could also extract the chemical CFCs for proper disposal, but they didn't have any of these machines in the country so for the first two thirds of the Year these used fridges started piling up everywhere, household cannot get rid of them easily the stores would not buy them in so, some enterprising people started charging consumers like 10 year olds to come pick up their fridges but then they just go dump them in the countryside somewhere, is it within the first couple months or so of this new rule there were already 1 million fridge is stocked up randomly around the UK with an additional $40,000 a week, being added to these piles.
[13:23] 1 million fridges within a few months. I mean that that number seems staggering there's only what there's like 63 or 64 million people entire UK and and within a couple months they thrown out a million fridges. If this isn't highlight the huge amount of waste that we're generating I don't think anything in this show will but keep going.
[13:44] Well I think that's an interesting point David because since we have these trash collecting infrastructures I don't think many of us aren't aware right we don't see the end result of all this wasted being bruised cuz it's promptly whisked away but as, the Chinese ban on foreign waste which we'll talk about in which we mentioned last year in our life and Plastics episode episode 19 the moment you cut the flow of this trash disposal infrastructure off you see the immediate effects they start piling up quickly because, this is so much of it and it's constant and we'll talk about where all this goes.
[14:24] Yeah that that's a really good point and I think outside of events like this or the very recent China development which again as you mentioned full address. Are the only time people realize were think about trash and how much there is in their day-to-day lives either when they're driving past the landfill and they have to close the windows and put the air conditioner on inside circulation so they don't get a whiff of that. Or to the few times and I guess it doesn't happen as much in the suburbs but if you live in a city when the trash collectors decide for whatever reason that probably cuz it pinches are getting cut to go on strike. And then you'll have you know a couple days and no trash collection maybe couple weeks and all of a sudden the streets are just filled with giant Houston out the trash and it's insane how much tax do we actually generate but never see it until it's not being collected and whisked away and carried off somewhere out of sight and out of mind. But usually those strikes don't last very long because the effect is so overwhelming and can quite literally shut down cities within a few days.
[15:23] That's not the only way people become aware of all this waste, and as long as we're talking about the UK which is a place near a large body of water we should mention the depressing reality of how all this waste affects many ocean life, and just a couple of days ago March 18th a dead whale washed up on a coast in the Philippines. And it was determined that the cause of death was attributed to the 40 kg or 88 pounds of plastic that were found in his stomach, the scientist that examine the well said it was the most plastic that they've ever seen in an animal and the items include at least 16 rice tax for banana plantation style bag, and multiple plastic shopping bags and of course as we talked about in that life, and Plastics episode the amount of of plastic and other trash that we're adding to our oceans is just mind-boggling and it's only going to increase exponentially unless we can do something to curb all this over consumption and production.
[16:26] Yeah this is just one wheel that we use as an example but there are so many stories about both of marine mammals whales dolphins as well as seabirds fish that are just overflowing with garbage when they eventually die from this I found on the beach scientist look into the cause of the death and just find them spilling out with plastic another, I materials it's a huge huge problem and this is not really the focus of the show by any means but it is something that we need to be aware of that these. Huge amounts of trash that was generating the recycling that we're unable to actually take care of, it all has consequences not just on the world and not just on ourselves but also on all these very fragile ecosystems and animals that compose them throughout the world.
[17:11] Why don't we talk numbers then David on some of this Global trash.
[17:15] My favorite part let's go.
[17:17] In 2016 we generated 2.01 billion tons of Municipal Solid Waste. And by 2030 if nothing changes that 2.01 billion tons will grow to 2.59 billion tons each year, am I 2050 will be generating 3.4 billion tons of annual waste which is a 70% increase from present-day level.
[17:42] So just one second angle before you keep going with your Shield your I want to just break down that enormous number that we're generating right now that 2 billion tons did your input it sort of in a context because what, a ton it's hard to visualize a ton by weight of an exercise of a car, Napa car if it's his number so just really quickly and then we are going to get the per capita stuff in the moment but just to help us visualize how much stuff this is, if you divide this down more or less by every single person on Earth around it down a little bit to make our mathil more simple. 2 billion tons / 7 billion people are so let me see each one of us on this Earth is responsible sort of, 4 about 260 kg of trash annually so that's 573 pounds if you take that. You think about it everyday how much trash am I generating that's about a pound and a half of trash a day. About three-quarters of a kilogram of day it may be an easier way to visualize it even than that is think about this annually you are generating half the mass of an entire dairy cow in pure garbage. I wait what I'm talkin about if I can keep going keep going sorry.
[18:58] The story is is much much much worse than that David because you just go to the global figure if I will break that down by region. First we know that this growth and waste going to contribute to climate change because already the treatment disposal and collection of trash worldwide accounts for some 5%, of our total annual greenhouse gases.
[19:22] Even that about the same as as air traffic.
[19:25] I don't even know if air traffic is that takes that big of a share of the pie the air traffic is like 1% or something.
[19:32] Perfect Pour down pull up all the facts and figures right now is the EPA transportations 28% aircraft is 9% in the US.
[19:43] Aircraft is 9% in the US.
[19:45] It's about the same as all real and ships and boats traffic yeah I'm worth more than that that's about 4% of looks like in the US.
[19:54] Well that's some comparisons for y'all but I know one thing that gets cited a lot in this broad our conversation about global trash is, how the developing World contributes to all this and a favorite side to point out is that the growth trajectory of the skull Chasse will occur fastest. In low-income countries it will triple in sub-Saharan Africa double in South Asia and double, in the Middle East and North Africa but that's just growth Trends not the totality of waste contribution and so before you say I it's those pesky developing-country people who are reproducing and developing too quickly that are the cause of all this waste, let's go back to this per-capita discussion David that you brought up so in terms of total waste high-income countries where we find just 16% of the global population, those countries are responsible for 34% of total waste, well he's a low income countries with just 9% of the global population are responsible for a mere 5% of total waste and in terms of per capita North America is the leader here. 2.21 kg of waste that we are producing per person every single day so that's much larger than that .75 kg figure that you.
[21:11] Are you cited as the global average effort comparison Asia the Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa all produce around 0.5 kg of waste per person each day. Batman that makes intuitive sense right this shouldn't be a surprise wealthier population consume more. Generating the most waste and in urban regions have the highest levels of wealth and consumption, and North America is both wealthy and the region with the highest levels of organization in the world so we really shouldn't be surprised by that.
[21:40] I mean that's talking about how much trash were generating but where does it all end up House of divided so it looks like his break down here so we're talking in this episode specifically about menus Municipal trash and I want to make a distinction real quick when we were trying to figure out how to tackle this episode it's like what we talked about trash In This Very sense of this is what the stuff we throw away personally everyday as well as the recycling or are we going to talk about waste which is sort of the larger concept involves more manufacturing questions about that and we decided to pair it down specifically the trash particularly because of China recycling stuff with will get you in a moment. Let's see how many times I can see that across this episode and so so the focus here is like I said very much on Municipal disposal of this garbage and and how does breaks down as 40% of it is being put into landfills. So these are these giant piles of trash. That Sunday archaeologist if there is still humans around will be overjoyed to discover and dig through and find all this horrible stuff about our culture with these giant monuments of our waste, and I mean I guess that's not a New Concept is a Dana how much of human history is literally built on the garbage of other previous cultures coming before and I mean.
[22:58] What's what we talked about in 1 episode, how in the future when archaeologists look back the greatest sign of human civilization in the present day will not be our structures it will not be all these things refill it will be the, massive layer of chicken bones that we leave in the Earth's crust that future scientist will look at in just be like flabbergasted at where all this.
[23:22] If you like wild they had a lot of chickens Ruled the Earth. Awesome but I am even beyond that I mean cities like London like Rome are slowly getting taller because it built on old layers of trash, this is a human tradition As Old As Time and you can see this really that nearly half of our trash is still ending up in these giant landfills even though we're taking them away from the cities putting it somewhere else trying to compress it as much as possible it's still our primary way of disposing all this waste that we create on top of that, 19% is either recycled or composted this varies by place to place this number is decreasing all the time and what recycling means is Up For Debate. Talk about that in the moment.
[24:04] And I think that figure also came from a like a industrial friendly report. Global by the World Bank I think in academic papers I've also said I've seen the standard figure being that like a all plastic that we've ever produced for example that less than 9% I think. Is ever been recycling it in the US where like approaching 4%.
[24:25] Yeah the numbers I keep seeing or 2017 was a great year for recycling we're at 9%, I've always with recycled 2018 following is a band was a disastrous here we are down to four point something percent, and it's expected to decrease even more this year both because we are increasing the waste we generate and recycling less and less of it, so take take that figure with a little bit of a grain of salt but we're trying to be optimistic here so I would love if we could hit 19% especially if a lot of it is composting which is the best way that we can, turn this waste into something useful but that's 40% is in landfills nearly 20% is recycled or composted for being optimistic 11% is incinerated and before we will gas masale know you know this is actually one of the better ways of dealing with this trash with it's just too much of it some consideration is used for power generation this is very popular program in Philadelphia right now among many other cities but it also is a if it's done right is one of the better ways to make sure that you're not polluting with this trash very high temperature incineration is actually a very clean way disposing of stuff and it breaks down what is harmful chemicals.
[25:35] Any efficient way but the downside of this of course is that it releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the air so while we are disposing of this trash, we are making a climate-change problem worse there's always a trade-off and that's where some of the energy generation are we getting out of this comes from so 11% is incinerated, and in the last third Daniel well if we're not dumping it in landfills if we're not Recycling and if we're not burning it what happens.
[26:02] We ship it to space where we injected into the infinite void and never have to worry.
[26:07] In the future may be.
[26:09] That's not the future baby.
[26:11] Just launched it straight into the sun.
[26:14] We just have to Lodge it past the The Kessler of the Kepler.
[26:19] Kepler Point vocabulary.
[26:21] Yeah we just had a lot about the Kepler.
[26:22] The Cooper Kepler belt damn my science ignorance is showing right now I swear I know more about space.
[26:29] Cut this out David cut this.
[26:30] It is written unfortunately not though you are sort of right I mean that is basically just dumping our trash into the void. What's actually happening is this last third is just dumped here on Earth a lot of it is thrown into waterways a lot of it is washed away is up in the ocean like we talked about some of it is burned in pits and he's low temperature burning smart extremely bad, are they don't break down these chemicals as far as they should so they put a lot of pollutants and toxic fumes into the air. And it ended then there's a couple other very crude method of disposal that basically mounted just leaving the trash somewhere so right now even with all this technology and knowledge we have about waste disposal after however many thousand years of having to deal with the problem. A third of our trash is just openly dumped in that is obviously a huge problem. I think we should talk about what type of trash we are generating and dumping.
[27:24] I want to touch on food in organic material real quick David because it turns out in Canada. Percent of all food that is produced is either wasted or lost.
[27:36] This is according to a report in January of this year and the total value of this lost food comes out 249 billion dollars, which is enough to feed every single Canadian for 5 months about two-thirds of this food is wasted during the production or manufacturing cycle with the rest being wasted at the consumer level, and this sounds excessive write it and I mean it is but it's less of a Canadian Quirk than a reflection of global trends.
[28:02] It doesn't matter today that 30% of all food that is produced is wasted or lost, and internationally of all that Global Municipal solid waste that we generate that 2.01 billion ton figure will 44% of that is food and organic material in the first when I read that I thought well, maybe that's not so bad you know we produced a ton of weight but at least half of it is organic material right then I realized the disasters my thinking because I mean for one as we talked about just because waste is biodegradable or or organic does not make it environmentally neutral right in our episode 6 dead in the water we touched on Ocean eutrophication which is a process caused by the excessive runoff of agricultural fertilizer organic material and similarly when organic matter is left to rot in these huge unnatural concentrations and landfills are released a lot of methane which as you know is one of the most potent although short-lived greenhouse gases that we have and not to mention the greenhouse gases and another cost associated with producing food that didn't need to be produced in the first place.
[29:11] But I mean this is not the first time we talked about your culture recently even on this show Daniel it's one of my favorite topics here and 50% of the global population absolutely is, can through this industrial model where we're going to be cops as Commodities of course in very unstable ways and then we shipped these all around the world to these giant Distributors well after then package them, and then send them off for sale in these Regional grocery networks so of course you're going to have. Both of the waist during that complex supply chain it's not just you know we're plugging these apples from these trees we have to package it put it with other Apple ship it off somewhere unpackage it so it is it's complicated but a lot of that is absolutely because of our need to ship these products, so far from the original destination we could shift to a more local and sustainable model where we aren't having to Patxi's things in such a ridiculous ways, then we could cut out a huge amount of this waste but consumers for whatever reason aren't interested in that and I can't tell you how many times I've seen these just ridiculous things in stores. Dear Daniel where I go into a I go into a grocery store or Corner Bodega store. They want an orange and I guess they're not grown locally up here in New York they have to be shipped whatever but oranges are these.
[30:26] Fruit it's covered in this natural protective layer the Rind right keeps it fresh I can peel it.
[30:33] But recently I don't know who is doing this maybe seems photos online but I seen them real life as well are you heaviest pre peeled oranges where the Rind is removed and in the plastic like, what is the word literally removing the sting that is already doing the purpose and then using plastic to do it again, it's crazy you try and buy apples that are wrapped in Saran Wrap whatever these boots they have all the additional unnecessary Packaging even when some of these are coming from local places I bought greens for example that are that on the side say grown in Brooklyn so it's I know it's coming just from a short distance away but it's given to me in a plastic box wrapped in Saran wrap for some reason and I don't even have an option to buy these things not in this this process, maybe I should mention there's actually a store that opened up just down the street from me, called himself a zero-waste grocery store which is a cool model where everything they bringing his bulk, we have like no packaging at all you going to the store everything is just in my buckets, and that you have to bring your own stuff if you want some rice you bring your your mason jars scoop it into the air and then you know take it home by wait all the fruits and produce and stuff that nothing is plastic nothing is in any sort of container that is one use I used to bring your own or you can you can buy a glass there and then get a deposit back if you bring it back.
[32:00] And it's encouraging Model A lot of stuff is is taken from things that are grown locally, to try and cut down on that waste that occurs in the process of shipping with me to talked about and we'll talk about one time you stuff as we go along but I would love to see a sort of larger ship to this type of model. But I'm getting a little bit off topic from the different types of waste that we talked about you.
[32:21] Will you mention like one use products and all this packaging on our food, and which brings us to plastic and plastic is an enormous share of all this waste its 12% of the solid waste that we generate in this Municipal Solid Waste category in which is problematic for, just in an infinite number of reasons some of which we talked about in episode 19 life in plastic one of which being that this plastic breaks down into microplastics which then infiltrate human Water Supplies are food in the gut of microorganisms that comprise the foundation of marine food webs to name a few, but David I want to come back to plastic in a little bit because there's a larger discussion to be had about that, you did mention earlier that were talking specifically about this Municipal Solid Waste here but I do want to give a couple figures on other types of waste I think it's important to keep in mind because total human consumption of goods and the waste generated by us is not limited to this end consumption the products we consume in stores but includes all the activities that go on to make that final consumption ultimately possible, rights of specifically we have another category of waste called Industrial Waste we have agricultural waste we have waste from construction, there is hazardous and medical waste not included in these figures and electronic ways from all our gadgets.
[33:47] And some of these can be much higher in terms of total waste than the ones that were talking about specifically Industrial Waste globally is created 18 times higher, that mean Isabel Solid Waste, with the highest levels occurring of course in rich areas and while the global average per capita generation of Industrial Waste is around 12 and 3/4 kg per person per day, it averages 42 G in kilograms per person in higher-income countries, and as low as 0.3 kg per person per day in low and middle-income countries.
[34:24] So just keep in mind the scale of all this wasted were talking about this is actually just a small chunk of, Aldi is the associated waste generated from our human activities in like we touch down in our desert ification episode. The cities that we can strike the urban lifestyles that we live these are all supported by these massive activities that go on behind the scenes specifically cities for example. Requiring 200 times the city footprint in other land uses around the world just to make that life possible, I think industrial weight is one of those things that kind of nose lips to mine because that's a truly a category that we don't see first-hand unless it's being burned. In our backyard and then.
[35:06] Poisoning the water supply.
[35:08] Yeah he's a.
[35:09] Real quick I just want to bring these back to that cow comparison I mentioned earlier so if we're just talking global average not even this one that's adjusted for a first world versus developing World whatever I meant to know about annually we're doing half a cow or the trash each. But if you add this in just your ways and you add this agricultural waste just to visualize how much waste is generated on your behalf to allow the world to function as it is right now. More than three cows Daniel your Diaries going out it is about 12 cows of trash per person. Every single year. 7 billion * every single E I mean that is a huge amount of garbage that is being generated on our behalf to create this, Global civilization that we have today no wonder we're looking at how much waste we're creating in order to live the way that we do. Everything is basically entirely unsustainable how can you think they were extracting this much stuff and throwing away this much stuff 12 cows worth of garbage every single year can approach anything even remotely resembling sustainability, but let's not get dragged down on this cow stuff because we were talking about trash we'll talk about this problem and recycling problems that we're about to get into then maybe you've heard about in the news with China ban what we're really talking about is the, economy of trash the market that is the global municipal waste trade.
[36:36] We have some stats on the global trade for trash specifically, you know it's expected to reach 484 billion dollars in value by 2025 which is a jump from 300 billion and 2017 but David I'm too excited to get to this whole recycling industry I think I said more important discussion here because this is what we you mentioned that we're creating all this trash and waste and unsustainable ways with many people look to recycling as the solution for that, and this is where the discussion truly gets interesting so they kicked us off I said we get back to plastic and. Of all the plastic the world has produced between 1950 and 2015 less than 10% of it has been recycled, brighten we alluded to these figures earlier but in the United States where around 4.4% of all our waste gets recycled and that's expected to plummet to somewhere around 2% based on what we're about to talk about, and we discussed the Chinese ban on foreign trash last year when this was just going into effect, and now a year later we're seeing dramatic effects from that bad as it looks look at this because this is a perfect example of how, by and large the industry for recycling around the world is basically David a giant scam.
[37:55] Recycling as a scan Daniels or heavy words and something I don't think a lot of people would think necessarily would go together but really that's what's happened, I mean we in grade school were taught all about recycling right the 3 R's they would tell us though I think there is a better case to be made that there should be 5 hours and I'll get to that at the end of.
[38:15] Reuse reuse reduce Andres I.
[38:20] Will you got them wrong and out of order, reduce reuse recycle but yeah all those bars are actually there and unfortunately more more we really don't, paying attention to the first to reduce and reuse and most of the focus of our efforts of our cultural participation is on the third one recycling, there was a big campaign several decades ago to really get people to recycle and then that's for good reason again. Something that is, is good Daniel you don't like our philanthropy episode don't get us wrong with cycling is great we should all be recycling but I just want to.
[39:01] Great episode.
[39:02] Yeah I just want to expose some of the the not-so-great motivations for creating this. And we believe it to this in the past and some other episodes but basically Amada recycling movement as we understand it is about shifting of the burden of trash creation from these corporations from these industries like commission is huge amount of industrial waste and let's created, and placing the burden of dealing with all these problems on the individual on each and every one of us. And this was a huge PR coup made by these companies because they were able to shift these very cheap one time use packaging and products and a lot more affordable for them to create a lot easier for the mass production schedules to ship out.
[39:43] I mean obviously this means that they're generating a huge amount of trash and then they responsible Society we would say no you know this is not acceptable yeah it's going to cost you more to make reusable stuff or things that are easily recycled but that's what we should do because it's environmentally responsible. But it said his corporations were able to say no you know it's not unless that have to deal with these problems it's y'all. You are the end users you are the ones ultimately holding the garbage in your hands so therefore it's your responsibility to take care of that problem and dust the recycling program really got kicked off, to make people feel like they were responsible for taking care of this and so we have chosen a top shave its plastic, there's a recycling bin Havens paper through the recycling bin if it's cardboard put in the recycling bin glass you know all these things and a different parts of the world is different responsibilities some places are a much better about their recycling, sorted out the sale can clear glass hear colored glass here metal goes here papers over here, and there are reasons for that this is another thing that we mention like Taiwan we'd be very aware that recycling isn't just a one-size-fits-all thing you can't just throw everything in the machine and it recycled it there's a lot of manual sorting and separation that needs to be done oral to get contamination and whole batches can be wasted at least the fees that makes things more expensive and we'll get to that.
[41:00] Here at least in the United States so much other cycling is like oh yeah put it on the blue bin. And we'll sort it out later which is a very American way to approach these problems and we think that we're doing something good with this, but unfortunately that's not the case a lot of this recycling ends up, as garbage and nothing to talk about those fake recycling bins where it's like you're at Starbucks they say to your recycling and just throw it out but I mean the actual ones that are picked up by recycling trucks most of our trash most of our recycling all go more or less the same place despite our best efforts despite the good that we think we're doing when we are recycling and don't get me wrong don't not recycle if you have that option available to you especially aluminum and especially glass are we safe huge amount of energy recycling those those are about the only profitable things to recycle. Things like plastic things like paper a lot of that ultimately unfortunately ends up in garbage dumps.
[41:55] Real quick to clarify David I think there's a couple things going on one I totally agree with company Shifting the responsibility from themselves to Consumers but, to clarify based on what you're saying I think it's more that they've been successful at Shifting the perception of responsibility to, individuals because as we see even when we try super hard to recycle and we sort everything, you like you said it does just end up in the landfill or doesn't go where we think it is but there's another thing going on which is companies that actually are employing some kind of recycling process but it may not be for the reasons we think it is. Here's Von Hernandez of the break free from plastic initiative quote what's happening in Southeast Asia. What's happening in Malaysia shows just how bankrupt the recycling system really is, consumers especially those in the west are conditioned to believe that when they separate the recyclables and throw them out they don't be properly taken care of, but that has been exposed as a myth.
[42:56] Doing China announced that it would no longer be importing foreign recyclables and their waist wealthy countries particularly the UK and United States immediately they still predicament. These countries produce way more garbage than they have the land and infrastructure to handle, so they have been shipping a large percent of it to China under the guise of recycling and to be clear with China band specifically is any plastic waste that isn't pure, and there's serious about it to China is inspecting and rejecting crates of trash at its border sending back paper shipment from the US that were mixed with glass or sending back crates of lead concentrate contaminated with mineral Ash back to South Korea, but in fact this practice of shipping waste to China has been so widespread that the country became responsible for importing and processing 72% of the world's Total Plastic waste, and since they started importing trash 27 years ago they have collectively processed 45% of the global total so we're talking about a massive share of global waste that had been shipped to China.
[44:05] But with this been China's import of trash is expected to be a mere 1% of previous Imports. So not surprisingly since the band trash has been piling up within these wealthier countries. Which will get you but first let's talk about one of the supply chain innovations that took place immediately then that's up practically overnight wealthy countries like the u.s. to UK Japan Germany Australia shifted shipments of garbage. From China into Thailand Vietnam Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries where it's been piling up ever since Imports, eventually be taken out by an emerging illegal Consortium of recycling factories that skirt regulations destroy the environment and dump this unusable waste in towering piles, where else Daniel but in poor neighborhoods and we talked about on the show but I mean we have sand mafias, we have I guess regular mafias will there are huge.
[44:59] Water Mafia.
[45:00] Yeah they're huge vibrant communities of trash mafias as well and I don't think anything highlights the inefficiency to this global system of. Trade and capitalism as well as the fact that we for some reason are taking garbage. And shipping it halfway around the world just so somebody else will allow it to destroy their environment instead of where it came from and then this is a huge hundreds of billions of dollars industry. That's insane.
[45:27] What I don't even think they allow it David it this is this is something that, the world really didn't know was calling on until China was basing like yet yeah we're not accepting this anymore and a lot of the US for example out of these countries like you mentioned. Tried as best they could to start shipping these things to other poor countries in Southeast Asia in the first six months of 2018, plastic waste Imports in Indonesia increased by 56% in Vietnam it doubled and at one point they had 9000 shipping crates full of plastic does piling up in reports Malaysia's plastic imports from the United States similarly doubled and Thailand experience. Team fold increase in plastic waste Imports experiencing a 30000 shipping crepe 11. The governments of some of these countries didn't even know this was happening until these these crates start piling up on their on their Shore and all this smoke from these illegal burn pits that were spreading around the country started making people sick in it like what is going on. So let's talk about real quick the illegal operations these these recyclable Mafia consortium's if you will Dave and here's a quote from Dominique mooresburg and riding and Huffington Post earlier this month.
[46:47] Processing contaminated plastic recyclables requires more sorting to sit out the good stuff and incurs additional cost for legal recyclers. Which need to meet regulatory requirements and shell out cash to discard whatever ways they aren't able to recycle. Unlicensed recyclers however consent of factories and hire workers cheaply and illegally access groundwater for the recycling process. Without any environmental regulations to worry about these recyclers can leave contaminated water untreated. Which has been affecting local waterways in biodiversity. Leftover recyclables that can't be processed can be dumped illegally in other words for free often these dump Plastics are then burned their noxious fumes polluting neighborhoods and sickening residents. These naughty boys are importing a lot of what's basically just rubbish the Johnson ly a license recycler base near the Malaysian Capital referring to the rash of illegal recycling facilities that have cropped up around the country. The recyclables bait in Port they're so contaminated and poorly sorted that only approximately 30% of it can be used the rest ends up getting done.
[47:58] I think it's worth noting here to Daniel why this band happened in China caused this huge Cascade and everyone's scrambling of the Chrisleys mafias. In the first place in and that was in large part because of this film that appeared in China it's called plastic China about this sort of Homespun. Recycling and I use air quotes there though you can't see it industry that exists in China the tape is Western Waste and turn it into something profitable at the expense of environmental and human. I caused waves across the country and ultimately the world and now we're dealing with the consequences.
[48:38] It's a really fascinating documentary I encourage everyone to check it out if you can. Obviously you can rent it buy it it called plastic China if you have an Amazon Prime account you can watch it there for free, but it follows a family a migrant family living near a port town on the coast of China's Yellow Sea, just kind of documenting their day-to-day life living in this reality of being part of this town where everyone's job that disease 5,000 recycling operations and there are part of it. And essentially what their job is they pick up these huge bales of unsorted plastic waste, from Some central location they take it back to what is their home and it just it just piles up everywhere and you have mothers fathers daughters Sons. All sitting and living in this plastic waste sorting it by hand there's images of children who, will take a lighter and burn the plastic so they can smell it to figure out what kind it is children are sorting medical waste their bathing in this plastic because invades their home there cooking in it, are they use the uses plastic to for burning to fuel their cooking fires or an or to provide one.
[49:54] And it's really dirty business you know sleeping in this class extorting yet putting it through these machines with chop it up into really small pieces which there then breathing in and then they run it through a another machine which kind of turns out this like plastic Group which then gets shredded into pellets which get sold back as manufacturing inputs to someone, and of course now that this band took place in China a lot of these people are out of work and these are the ones taking their recycling operations to Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries. And setting up shop there where if before they were in some kind of unsafe environment, they sure as hell are now but to me it's just a great revealer of the Sham that is this recycling industry. Like we looted to earlier David if recycling from the perspective of these markets for it and in the context of our current economic model if it's about saving the planet. Then why are people willing to do this work illegally in a way that destroys the local environment polluting waterways and soil and other working conditions that are pretty much guaranteed to get you cancer.
[50:58] It in ultimately it's because I can make a profit doing it. How can they make a profit doing this environmentally a green initiative to save the planet because because ultimately, this recycling comes down to that it's not about saving the planet it's about lowering the cost for certain manufacturing input, which don't get me wrong. That concept is great the concept of lowering manufacturing cost improving efficiency decreasing waste in the things that we produce. All these things are great in isolation but if those concept are used to increase production of things that we shouldn't really be making in the first place. At the end of the day we have a net loss to the environment into society.
[51:38] Well after that Daniel maybe it's a little bit gauche to try and talk about the effects of this on the US when it's literally killing people. Abroad but it has had profound effects here at home in the United States as well as other countries like we mentioned especially UK, and over the past few decades see what has been exporting around a third of all its recyclables of all its recyclables to China.
[52:03] These are primarily the type of mixed Plastics that you find in municipal waste, 80% of this mix plastic waste has been going to China and the reason is because one of the main limiting factors in terms of cost for recycling is the labor. Plastics are complex and there are so many different types you know you've seen them on the bottom it'll say one it'll say to your municipality probably only except one or two of these types of plastics, but you're throwing everything in there everybody doesn't okay so you need people to sort all that stuff and figure out which one it has to go in and this is expensive color bottles in a separated from Clear bottles plastic with food on it has to be clean to the food contaminations removed, plastic wrap itself is something that can't be recycled because it jams machines that have to be taken out and thrown away a number one soda bottle will melt differently than a number one vegetable container all these things are complicated complex and adds the expense of all this because you need to be manly sorted by people, and this is why Plastics in other sectors like Industrial Waste where things are more standardized are typically easier to recycle that uniform nature of the products that they're creating a make it much easier to process. And so it's it's only really this complicated mixture of meso we find particularly municipal waste which is why we're really focusing on that in this episode.
[53:21] That is expensive because of his labor component and that's why we've been Outsourcing it because US Labor is just too expensive to do this efficiently. We could do it here but the cost of your recycling would Skyrocket and infected many municipalities in the United States have seen this happen with the past two years causing to take all sorts of drastic actions.
[53:41] So I mean we have some examples of this to this is great report that looks at, every single state and how much they've been impacted by these recycling bands and some of the municipalities how they were responding to this and one of these cities here we're just going to pick out and then pick on a couple of these. There's a place called Chester city in Pennsylvania that's just outside Philadelphia and they are now sitting half of all the recycling to an incinerator. So you think you're sorting stuff out you think it's going to go and see the Earth but this stuff is ultimately just being burned at them out of 200 tons a day in addition to the already 3500 tons of trash, if they already were incinerating residents are worried about this additional plastic that is being burned that's worsening there air quality, and this is a town that we need to remember that already has a 40% rate of asthma among children.
[54:30] Elevated levels of heart disease and cancer so there is a very valid reasons to be concerned about this increase side effects from this recycling down here in the United States and in this is just one of many examples. There are municipalities that have just stopped accepting certain types of recyclables I mentioned several are no longer taking Plastics or their limited was Plastics they will not accept, some of them are only taking paper now some of them are refusing to take paper at all there's a city in New Hampshire that just canceled all the recycling collection there's a town in Oregon called Grants Pass that hold its residents to keep recycling, you know keeping everything in the bins but then we're just taking those bins and throwing them in the landfill there's a wide variety of responses some worse than others but the main theme from it all is that most of these states and most of these cities are panicking, if you don't know what to do.
[55:19] I reached out to a guy who. Has worked in this industry as a driver and he gave us permission to repeat a written statement and I want to read that here this comes from firewire best wire they right. I've seen the garbage business first hand from the driver's seat of the front in truck I can tell 100% that even if you started properly even if it all goes in the right bin when I show up in my boss at order me to dump the bin, I'm dumping it in my truck I've talked back but the end of that conversation is always do you want to keep working here you let me worry about that. On a regular day Recycling and garbage are scheduled to have separate trucks what about when someone calls in sick while those customers still need their bins empty. If I dumped a bin of garbage into my recycling load the whole load is now contaminated and can't go to the recycling facility we use. If I dumped a bin of recycling into a garbage load of course it's just going straight to the garbage guess what someone calls in sick about every other day. And guess what I know people who sort at that recycling facility. If your plastic is not clear it's coming out the conveyor and going into the garbage that they themselves produce I can't remember but I think all glass goes garbage to. They are pretty much set up to intercept wood paper metal and clear Plastics after that it's just garbage of their own luckily they happen to run a garbage dump on their own property LOL.
[56:47] Compliance among customers is pretty bad recycling is supposed to cost customers last because of cost us less but it was in the band is not recycling in the recycling center will charge back the load is garbage to us, that's another way I can get fired so technically I'm supposed to check every single band I done to ensure it to be recycled do they schedule enough time for me to do that no of course not. We compete with the city we are cheaper than they are the reason we are cheaper is because we get paid less and our boss is cut Corners the likelihood of anyone in the public ever finding out about compliance rate among third-party contractors garbage laws. Is pretty low at the end of the day what's going to kill us is what's in the are not landfills which is why the story is so bad but my city has land around in every direction Billy is pretty much locked up for landfill space I would imagine. He goes on to say I would like to point out that our city has a pretty comprehensive composting program and organic waste is collected in separate bands and rapidly composted in a local facility, once a year residents can get that compost for free in their own containers composting is required of all residences and businesses in the city compliance, it's not terrible and there are a lot of people who think they can just drop their fast food back in there I'm sure that the industrial process used for recycling are more energy intensive than composting though especially for glass and colored plastic.
[58:07] That's a really revealing look from somebody who is literally driving the trucks Daniel but I want to turn back once more to a quote from that Dominique mosbergen, and how they sort of refrain this recycling conversation I think it's enlightening so let me just read this real quick. Activists say that Chinese recyclers have been setting up factories often illegally across the Malaysian have been processing and disposing of waste without regulatory oversight whatever they managed to recycle is allegedly flowing back to China words used for manufacturing. China still needs a lot of raw materials you have to understand the recycling is really about manufacturing and it's only about manufacturing continued Mentor whose family has operated the scrap business in Minnesota for several Generations. We've come to see recycling at this environmental thing that's dusted with green fairy dust the recyclables are really raw materials and the reason they went to China in the first place because all the manufacturing was happening there. And it continues to go there now because manufacturing is still happening and it sooner that quote. And I think it's really important understand recycling in this context it without the greenwashing that we alluded to earlier when when they're trying to redefine recycling is this sort of individual thing we're doing for the environment.
[59:21] I remember that most of the recycling conversation is really one about markets and efficiencies and how much it cost to do something so we mentioned is labor problem and how recycling just isn't profitable for the most part and it's interesting actually a lot of this difficulty that's happening right now in recycling in the United States is actually great for these waste management companies because recycling was kind of a lost leader that they were running, in order to capture these these Municipal contracts for Waste Disposal with Recycling and traditional ways.
[59:55] And now that these municipalities are freaking out and not. Wanted to put the bill for the recycling allowing these waste companies instead to ship things the landfill their bottom line has increased dramatically they don't have to deal with these expensive recycling cost even if in the first place they were just shipping them off to China. It's an expensive process Bruce just dumping these things in these systems that we have running.
[1:00:17] I think this just as whole shifting our garbage to Malaysian these these other countries and then you know that what we can't shift we're just, throwing in the landfill while still, telling consumers that we're recycling their stuff I think it just reveals you know just a giant Shannon that this recycling industry isn't I think there's two important things to take away from this which is one. United States in these wealthier countries I always got the impression from this PR and these companies that the talk about their green initiatives. We had this advanced technology and that we in these wealthy countries I just built up this infrastructure to handle this way soon we were Recycling and doing all the stuff, but in reality we've been saying we've been recycling because we've been shipping it to someone else and if we don't have the infrastructure to handle this stuff what makes us think some poor country halfway around the world does.
[1:01:10] It said the only if we can't handle this way is the only way forward in the sustainable weight is to produce less of it and again this kind of goes back to that Evergreen debate about who's more at fault the consumer or the producer.
[1:01:23] As we talked about in episode designing deception we have a consumer economy because those who owns the capital those who owns the manufacturing centers the factories and the investment bankers who made money off of investing in those factories.
[1:01:39] These people wanted us as a population to consume more to fuel their economic growth, it's not it's not the other way around we're not consuming all this plastic did not demand is what's driving the production of this is completely the other way around and again going back to that episode about PR men and house seek to shift our habits in our lifestyles around things that are profitable for them, it's really easy to think about in your own life how we make choices everyday that we're kind of indifferent to you know if you go to a fast food joint and you order some food, at the end of the day you're not really impacted in your own life if they give you a paper plate or a plastic plate you don't really have a choice in the matter, so we just need to be hyper aware that when companies try to ship this, recyclable bird and antacids individuals when the narrative becomes the way we're going to save the world is by refusing straws, we need to recognize that this narrative is backwards if you needs to come from the other direction if we're going to solve this problem of this this waste buildup that we can't handle the company's the manufacturing owner have to produce less they have to find better ways to package it so we're not tearing off the skin of an orange and then wrapping in plastic wrap.
[1:02:56] I know this stuff sounds really dirty Daniel but there are some actual like literal scams in this process as well and we came across some of these and I think they're worth showing just to illustrate how. Dirty this trash industry is. I guess which isn't surprising to anybody so Waste Management Inc I mentioned them before they are a very large US public company in factored the largest Waste Company in the u.s. third in the entire world. Between 1992 and 1998 several the top Executives committed committed a series of financial frauds corrupt of a company's actual earnings. They've already reporting expenses they completed their profits typical cooking the book kind of stuff and he even paid bribes to Arthur Andersen. Which of the time was one of the largest and most respected Consulting and Counting firms in the world.
[1:03:44] Arthur Andersen David would go on to do the same thing for Enron the Energy company that went bankrupt in the early 2000s why Arthur Anderson is not alive today anymore it was kind of shamed out of existence.
[1:03:58] They still are functioning more or less exactly the same as Accenture you've probably heard of the same company. What are the time they were one of the largest and most respected Consulting and accounting firms in the world and they were paid to cover up the Scandal. When in 1998 Waste Management can no longer hide its true value it readjusted its market price over 1.7 billion dollars at the time the largest we statement in all of history. But there's more.
[1:04:26] In 2002 the mayor and a handful of city council people in the California city of Carson. We're caught accepting huge bribes in exchange for contracts with a trash company which was a subsidiary of Allied Waste Industries another large player, the contract was for 10 years. A 60 million and one of the largest bribes offered to an individual in that case was 1.5 million. What do you think about like the Mafia the mafia businesses. In America David it really does conjure up these types of businesses you know like concrete Builders and these companies that can really take advantage of the way that government is often the gatekeeper for these contracts right. Where you don't think of these businesses as being particularly sexy but that's exactly why it might appeal a guest of this type of criminal, activity because of the cash cow if you can get that contract for 10 years guaranteed for certain city and there's going to be very little oversight. And you're going to tell residents that your recycling and you're going to charge a premium for that but in reality you're just going to throw it in the landfill and I was going to know that's a great business.
[1:05:34] I just assumed like half these trash companies are associated with the mob I don't have any reason why but it seems like it would make sense.
[1:05:43] . so probably a great way to get rid of a body.
[1:05:46] Just saying. Will large scams actual convicted scams aside Daniel maybe we should get to the end of this episode. And talk about what we can do I know that's sort of one of the things that was driving the original scams here trying to shift this. What we can do to each and every one of us with the recycling campaigns was again everybody should recycle don't get that wrong recycling is good. In theory that's the way that we've we've put it into practice that is problematic well it's actually nailed down some things that we can.
[1:06:23] Well not something we can do as individuals but one of the most interesting potential Solutions at least, a sign of progress going forward there's an international treaty called the Basile convention that took effect in 1992 and it attempts to prevent developed countries from exploiting poor countries, forcing them to import hazardous waste at least without their consent and their various protocols associated with this trade. This plastic waste that we've talked about is not included in that treaty, and that's part of the reason why those Southeast Asian countries had no idea that all this plastic waste was being shipped to their country oh well now Norway has proposed to include plastic waste. Industry and I will go a long way in at the very least helping his track where it's coming from and where it's going since at the moment there really is no good comprehensive data on plastic waste, and the way it's transferred between countries and best case scenario would give poor Nations more leverage to refuse the garbage of these wealthy Nation, I hear the Norwegian Ministry of climate and environment quote. But explicitly including plastic waste in the scope of the Basel convention these waste stream can be controlled and mismanagement of plastic waste avoided, we believe the proposed changes will lead to less Marine plastic litter increased traceability more control and less illegal dumping of plastic waste.
[1:07:49] And here's Malaysia's minister of environment y'all be Yen who herself had no idea the scale of global waste until that Chinese ban quote, the citizens of the developed World need to demand that their governments be transparent about the way they track their waste, where exactly is your trash going where are your Plastics going what irritates me is the injustice, the Injustice seeing people in the developing World suffering from the rubbish originating in developed countries I don't think citizens of these countries know what's happening maybe even lawmakers don't know it cannot continue as business as usual. Finally David throwing a lot quotes at you but but here's Jenna jambeck a National Geographic Explorer. And researcher of solid waste riding in a 2018 paper quote. Of relevance to this discussion is the fact that the international Basel convention which governs the exports of hazardous and other waste already exist. If plastic waste were characterized as a waste requiring special consideration under this convention than export could potentially be regulated. It would also provide a framework for knowledge sharing and promotion of the proper management of waste. Including harmonisation of technical standards and practices which could help build capacity to properly manage plastic waste around the world.
[1:09:15] Is a lot of good information there Daniel. Are these are about regulating and controlling of the broken systems that we already have for the most part redefining plastic waste something needs to be tracked that can't be just thrown away. 2D Developing countries and our environmental and health damage shifted to them for a basic fee and I mean that's a great start I don't want to knock it. If we want to really cure this trash program if we want to take care of those what did I say 12 cows worth of garbage that's generated for each of us individually annually then we need.
[1:09:50] A lot more than three I'll tell you that.
[1:09:52] Yeah exactly then we really need to look at these systems that create all this waste in the first place and earlier in the episode in the you mentioned those three R's that were taught since elementary school reduce reuse recycle, and I want to mention that there's actually a movement to push it to 5 ours and I think this is a great start not just for us individually.
[1:10:14] Culturally and around the world to take these really hard and put them into practice so the V ARS refuse. If you don't need something don't buy it you don't need a plastic cup or straw don't take it. The less stuff that we take in the first place to less motivation there is to make it and again I'm not a bottom up sort of boycott kind of person these things rarely worker catch on, what is this is a global rule that we all really take the hard then it actually will have some sort of. Effective consequences on the production of these materials in the first place so never won our refuse number to reduce we already know this one so if you're already taking stuff try and use less of it, this is both in terms of consumption of but also in terms of how we let you know we don't need multiple straws we don't need multiple cups. I'm working on these straws and cups because of the recent straw ban so we're starting to see around the country because they're very visible plastic source of garbage that many of us are familiar with in our day-to-day lives. That just we don't need how many cups exist already there's these these companies could instead give us glass cups if we're staying inside we could bring her own cups.
[1:11:33] Mercedes companies money in the end I think Spence of time and convenience that aside so refused reduce, we use which we also know if you can if possible reuse these things reuse cups are you straws we use whatever it is as much as you can until you can't anymore bring this number for repurpose it is product that you're using that you can no longer we use is there another way that it can be used switch it to that, sometimes I seen people turn these little plastic cups into, a pots for plants there's lots of clever things we can do to turn these things that would otherwise end up in a landfill into something productive or beautifying or way to make our world a better place and if we can think of those, we should encourage them instead of looking at them and saying all that's quaint or that's cute where that's nice of a Pinterest project, what a great idea let me do that myself and of course number 5, recycle and I think what's important here is also making sure that our recycling is kept accountable. That means if we are recycling make sure that we know what we can recycle that we are not recycling things that will cause problems with a batch of that were sending off that means don't throw your pizza boxes in these recycling bins that spoils the entire bin.
[1:12:49] You can't do that no wish things can we recycle which things can't the best places to recycle them all these are important but also holding our meets the pallet he's accountable, with what they do with the recycling. And this is important part of the Electoral and political process we need to be there saying it's not just enough to offer some sort of recycling but that we know that what you say is being recycled actually is. And that's not being shipped off somewhere else out of sight out of mind or ending up in our landfills are garbage dumps like we seen some of these municipalities turn dude, show accountability across the board but individually and then also reaching out to these companies themselves saying hey why are you doing this, is no reason to treat somebody one use products and we'll get into this larger idea of waste in future episodes I think it's important thing there's a lot to be said on it with so I wouldn't really tackle up today and I want to quickly also point to some programs at some cities are running that are trying to counter some of this waste New York recently started this up it's very popular in San Francisco as well, but these large-scale composting programs where you have a second trash bin that the municipality provides its for all your organic compostable material the throat in this the city will take these send them out to somewhere this composted is turned into useful material that can be reused and repurposed. To hit a couple of our ours and make sure that all that stuff is not ending up, Andy's landfills and it's not being washed away into the ocean or Rivers causing that YouTube acacian like you mentioned Daniel.
[1:14:18] Right we need to blame these corporations for over producing this waste that we can't manage. And we do love to name and shame these companies and there's a way that you can participate in that Thursday. Movement called Break Free from plastic its Global in scope and they have something called the brand audit. And you can be a part of that it's a you kind of a crowd Source system where find their brand audit tool kit on their website which will link to. And if you if there's an area near you that has a lot of trash pollution especially on the coast or something like that you can go there maybe grab some friend or some other volunteers. You can help clean out that area but also sort it and then record in their database, where all this plastic pollution came from what company is producing all this and this goes into an annual report, that helps inform the public about who are the most egregious contributors of all this plastic that we're going to be swimming in in the next couple of years.
[1:15:22] Oh finally just want to offer correction last week we talked about the Carbondale spring movement. That is not in Colorado that is in Southern Illinois and so did you go back to last week's episode page, above the paving stones the desert you'll find a link to the Carbondale spring website as well as the site that has a lot of the philosophy behind what they're doing on could you check that out and again will keep track of that progress and report back.
[1:15:51] We should ask him about the recycling.
[1:15:53] Yes we should yeah although they're successful in implementing a permaculture model of food production we can expect less waste generation in the first place.
[1:16:03] Reduce refuse reduce reuse.
[1:16:10] Repurpose lots of think about.
[1:16:13] As always Daniel but think about it and we hope. Will you can find more information on all of this so you can see some photos by Links ra papers as well as a full transcript of this episode on our website at ashes ashes. Org.
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