Recycling, waste reduction forgotten solutions to climate change

WE CALL ATTENTION to an important but under-recognized issue in the climate change negotiations: The mitigation potential of recycling and waste reduction and the threat posed by false “waste-to-energy” solutions such as incinerators and landfill gas systems.

In the developing world, “waste-pickers” and “recyclers” already contribute substantially to emissions mitigation and are ready to do more, if given the recognition and support they need and deserve.

Recycling is one of the cheapest, quickest and easiest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developed and developing nations alike. Reducing emissions through recycling is 30 percent cheaper than through energy efficiency and 90 percent cheaper than through wind power. The potential of recycling, composting, and other waste prevention techniques to reduce emissions is enormous. Each family that recycles and composts reduces emissions as much as if it stopped driving the family car.

Recycling has major economic benefits, employing at least 15 million people in developing countries. Even in developed countries, recycling provides 10 times the jobs per ton of waste as incinerators and landfills.

Waste-pickers working in the informal economy are at the heart of existing recycling systems in the developing world, and must play an integral role in any expansion of recycling. Evidence from developing countries shows that when municipalities try to bypass waste-pickers by granting contracts to private waste management companies, these programs often fail outright and lead to job loss, wasted public resources, lower recycling rates, and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is supporting incinerators and landfills which compete with waste-pickers and recycling programs. These projects increase greenhouse gas emissions and unemployment—exactly the opposite of CDM’s intended effect. Waste-pickers need financial and technical support from a non-market based financial mechanism. Therefore, we ask the government to:

• recognize the critical and productive role that the informal recycling sector contributes to climate change mitigation and to a healthy economy.

• approve a Global Climate Fund that will invest in resource recovery programs that ensure decent livelihoods for all workers and traders in the recycling economy, and is directly accessible to waste-pickers and other informal sector groups.

• exclude waste disposal technologies (including incinerators, landfill gas and incinerator variants such as pyrolysis, gasification and plasma) from the CDM and other climate funds.

For more information, please see www.no-burn.org/wp. –Philippine Daily Inquirer

—REI PANALIGAN, EcoWaste Coalition; MANNY CALONZO, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives; OCHIE TOLENTINO, Cavite Green Coalition; ROY ALVAREZ, Earth Renewal Project; MERCI FERRER, Health Care Without Harm; NENENG JOSON, Krusada sa Kalikasan;BABY REYES, Mother Earth Foundation; ROMY HIDALGO, November 17 Movement; GEORGE DADIVAS, Salika; OFELIA PANGANIBAN, Zero Waste Philippines