Tons of waste dumped on the planet
What waste is dumped?
The waste is dumped on land-based dumpsites or in the oceans and include:
- Construction waste
- Industrial waste
- Household waste
- Plastic waste
- Electronic waste
- Radioactive waste
- Sewage
- Run-off waste (fertilizers, pesticides, and oil from for example farms running off into groundwater, rivers, oceans).
Waste dumping has become a way to “solve” the world’s enormous waste problem. We need to come up with better ideas pretty quickly or it will spin completely out of control.
This stunning amount of waste is partly because 99 percent of the stuff we buy is trashed within 6 months.
Effects of waste dumping
Naturally, simply dumping waste on the planet has consequences. The effects of waste dumping and improper waste management include:
- Pollution of soil: Waste can leak hazardous chemicals into the soil and from there into our food.
- Air pollution: The burning of waste at landfills release toxic substances into the air, including extremely poisoning dioxin.
- Pollution of oceans: 13 million tonnes of plastic end up in the world’s oceans each year. If we keep dumping plastic in the oceans, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea.
- Pollution of groundwater: 280 billion tons of groundwater is being polluted every year - that’s 9000 tons every second.
Tonnes of hazardous waste thrown out
Globally, this year
Earth cannot sustain our waste
The Global Footprint Network has created a measure for how much we are pushing the Earth in terms of resource use and waste generation. We already push 75 percent above what the Earth can sustain in the long run with regard to resource extraction and absorption of waste. And the number keeps going up.
Number of Earths humanity currently uses
To provide for our consumption
World waste production is going up
To add to the challenge, global annual waste generation is projected to increase by 70 percent between 2018 and 2050 unless major changes take place.
Waste dumping kills
According to the Guardian, mismanaged waste and waste dumping kills up to a million people globally every year.
The good news !
Leading green companies are becoming zero-waste companies. Zero waste is a philosophy that encourages redesign so that all products are reused. The process is similar to the way resources are reused in nature.
