Countries Becoming Dumps Due To Mismanagement Of Solid Waste- Study
Countries like Ghana, in West Africa, and Chile, in South America, despite their differences, have something in common: they have become dumps thanks to deficiencies in solid waste management in developed countries. Every year around two billion tons of urban solid waste are produced in the world, according to a report by the World Bank. Despite this, less developed countries illegally receive several tons of garbage every year under the justification of recycling.
Ghana is the most important “electronics graveyard” in the world. It is estimated that around 215,000 tons of pre-owned electronic devices from the United States and European countries are illegally exported to Ghana for recycling each year. The International Labor Organization (ILO) speaks of 50 thousand tons per year.
Another example is the Philippines. Between 2013 and 2014, the Asian country received about 69 containers with more than 1,500 tons of toxic or non-recyclable waste from Canada. Chile, in turn, is the destination of 59,000 tons of second-hand clothes per year to be resold and, of this volume, about 40,000 tons that are not resold are discarded in the Atacama Desert, forming mountains of garbage in the open air. in the Chilean landscape.
Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Administration of Ribeirão Preto (FEA-RP) at USP, Sonia Valle Walter Borges de Oliveira, a specialist in waste management, says that part of the problem begins with the lack of supervision in some countries when buying products second-hand. “Many Third World countries lack products in general and end up accepting used or second-rate products from rich countries”. According to the professor, when buying second-hand products, countries considered less developed do not demonstrate efficient inspection, because of this, a large part of the products ends up being disposed of inappropriately.
For professor and social scientist Pedro Roberto Jacobi, from the Institute of Energy and Environment (IEE) at USP, in São Paulo, a possible alternative for disposal is the strengthening of the circular economy and the application of reverse logistics. “The circular economy represents precisely the possibility of reusing much of this material, when we are talking about fabrics, obviously there are alternatives to take advantage of this discarded fabric. With regard to plastic, we are always dealing with the issue of reverse logistics.”
Reverse logistic
Reverse logistics indicates how to dispose of specific products in order to establish shared responsibility for the life cycle of these products. Citizens, who are consumers, would be responsible for the proper disposal of waste such as batteries, tires, medicines, aluminum, among others. Meanwhile, the private sector would be responsible for reincorporating the waste into the production chain and the Public Power is responsible for overseeing the process and, in a shared manner with the others responsible for the system, raising awareness and educating the citizen.
According to Sonia, all these actions are a set of strategies that must happen at the same time. “ A lot of public awareness, environmental education, much stricter legislation, permanent inspection, etc., without all these elements, and at the same time, we cannot move forward.”
The waste management specialist also explains that the lack of attention and care for waste disposal can cause several effects, which affect the receiving country on several fronts, one of the main ones being the environmental impact. “If you reduce the flora, if you reduce the local vegetation, there is an intensification of desertification and this will probably generate climatic effects of prolonged droughts and certainly modifying the region’s climate a lot. Remembering that the desert climate is usually intensely hot during the day and much lower temperatures at night, so it complicates everything and this will certainly affect the fauna as well”.