THE term “zero waste” has been a buzzword since around the 2000s, popularised by the zero waste alliance and primary lending agencies like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and echoed relentlessly by NGOs and environmental promoters.
It is perceived by some environmental grassroots as living without waste. This incorrect reception is due to the catchy term zero waste needing explanatory words. Thus, the complete phrase must read as “zero waste in landfill sites”.
No one can live without producing waste unless we are dead. So, zero waste does not at all mean living without producing waste.
Zero waste must be interpreted as solid waste management efforts that produce no waste disposed to a landfill site.
Everyone has a love-hate relationship with landfill sites. We produce waste but refuse to live nearby a landfill site. This is acceptable since no one conceives landfill sites as pleasant places to live beside.
This love-hate relationship with the landfill site is described as “not in my backyard”.
NIMBY has grown into a strong environmental issue due to limited land availability in urban areas, which generates social and environmental problems on site.
A city that manages conventional municipal solid waste requires a new landfill site as a final waste disposal site every 10-25 years, depending on the waste production and capacity of the landfill site.
A landfill site requires at least 100,000sq m of vacant land. This land cannot be found within the administrative boundaries of the city. The urban periphery is the best choice for the city to place its landfill sites.
Construction of landfill sites to serve a city, however, has never been smooth or free from social and environmental perspectives.
Wherever a landfill site is located, the social and environmental impacts generated by the landfill site will always arise. As a result, the concept of zero waste in a landfill site comes to the fore.
How can we accomplish a zero-waste state? A landfill site does not generate a single significant positive impact. This is a certainty based on several studies, particularly in developing countries.
Developed countries, with their technological superiority, can minimise the social and environmental impacts of a landfill site.
This technology is unaffordable in most developing countries, and zero waste is one possible option to manage municipal solid waste sustainably.
In developing countries, municipal solid waste management is simply translated into waste collection, transportation and disposal, so solid waste management has never been sustainable.
A simple indicator of this sustainability is the presence of an ever-increasing quantity of waste disposed in landfill sites.
As the existing waste hierarchy in Thailand shows, ideally, the largest part of the production of waste can be prevented, with only an insignificant quantity of waste disposed of at landfill sites.
A study in Mekong region countries shows that the predominant quantity of waste was biodegradable/organic waste. The others were recyclable waste, non-biodegradable waste and reusables.
Local governments must be the pioneer and take the lead. The central government’s role is complementary and acts only when local governments need help.
Challenges to this state are sluggish local governments, silo mindsets and political disinclination toward aims and goals. If these challenges can be surpassed, zero waste will no longer be just buzz words, but achievable.
Unfortunately, most local governments in Indonesia grasp only the traditional municipal waste management of the collect-transport-dispose-and-forget approach, without a willingness to leave their comfort zone. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
