Globalisation and waste management – ISWA 2014

In September 2014, ISWA published the final report “Globalisation and Waste Management” developed by the ISWA Task Force, which covers a wide range of issues related to waste management. David Newman, the president of ISWA, states:

“The report highlights the links between global supply chains, consumerism, population growth, urbanization, resource depletion, and waste management. It emphasizes the crisis humanity is facing with landfills and the need to provide waste collection services for half of the world’s population. Landfills and inadequate waste collection services affect both our health and the environment. We highlighted why a global collective effort is needed, just as it was in the fight against diseases (HIV, malaria), to stop hundreds of millions of tons of waste polluting water, land, and air. This requires large-scale cooperation and, above all, funding.

In this report, we confronted several topics. We focused on the plastic recycling sector and how the global supply chain is affected by recycling practices in developed countries that rely on the market, especially China, to ensure sustainability. We sought answers to the growing number of workers in the informal sector, particularly in developing countries, and how to protect them by transitioning them to a more formal sector. Finally, we examined the role of international cooperation in the development of waste management in economically poorer countries and discovered that international cooperation, which should have protected people’s health and the environment from uncontrolled waste, is nearly nonexistent—a shameful record for the international community that must be changed in the near future.”

The report was developed by the ISWA Task Force team: Antonis Mavropoulos (Greece), David C. Wilson (UK), Björn Appelqvist (Denmark), Costas Velis (UK), Jeff Cooper (UK).

Contents:

• About ISWA
• Preamble
• Introduction
• Key messages
• Global recycling markets
  • Introduction
  • Paper market
  • Plastics market
  • Waste trafficking
  • Sources of plastic waste imported into China
• Megacities and waste management
  • Megacities and urbanization
• The informal recycling sector
  • Case study – Linus Ganda’s recycling system
• Development of international cooperation