GWMO2 now published!

GWMO2 now published!

As lead author of UNEP and ISWA’s original Global Waste Management Outlook (GWMO) in 2015, and a contributing author to the long-awaited follow-up, I am thrilled to welcome the publication at UNEA-6 this week of GWMO 2024: Beyond an age of waste – Turning rubbish into a resource. Warm congratulations to the lead author, Zoë Lenkiewicz, who has written a concise and engaging report which will hopefully succeed in placing municipal solid waste management firmly where it belongs on the local and international political agenda.

Zoe has summed it up brilliantly in the 300 character summary on the back cover of the easy-to-skim-read 80-page report: ‘The Global Waste Management Outlook 2024 echoes the 2015 Global Waste Management Outlook’s call to action to scale up efforts to prevent waste generation; to extend adequate, safe and affordable municipal solid waste management to everyone worldwide; and to ensure that all unavoidable waste is managed safely.’ My thanks and congratulations to the patient project managers, Daniel Ternald of UNEP and Aditi Ramola of ISWA.

The untapped potential for better waste and resource management to curb global heating

I am pleased that the RICS Land Journal has published online an updated version of my article on the untapped potential for the waste and resource management sector to act as an enabler to unlock significant climate mitigation benefits across the economy. My best estimate of the mitigation potential is at least 15-20% of global carbon dioxide (equivalent) emissions, which is far beyond the IPCC’s estimate of 3% for the narrowly defined end-of-the linear-economy ‘waste’ sector, which is necessarily used in official climate reporting to avoid double counting.

This post supercedes that titled ‘COP26 and the waste and resource sector’, first published on 25 October 2022:

How much can better waste and resource management contribute to mitigating global heating? Prof David C Wilson addressed this question at the Policy Connect Sustainable Resource Forum seminar on October 11 2021. The answer with a high level of confidence is ‘significantly’, perhaps 15-20% of global carbon dioxide (equivalent) emissions. DCW has now written this up as a ‘thought piece’, making the case for prioritising actions at COP26 and beyond to improve waste and resource management and move towards the circular economy. This may be found as both an article and as a video interview on WasteAid’s COP26 online hub; as a feature on CIWM’s Circular Online; and as an ISWA guest blog.

Make phasing out open burning of waste an international priority

Professor David C Wilson welcomes the only waste-related official side event at COP26 which is being held in Glasgow today at 1315 and available to watch on the United Nations – Climate Change COP 26 YouTube channel. That the topic is ‘A wasted opportunity: open burning of waste causes a climate and health calamity’ is an added bonus. Congratulations to ISWA, Wasteaid, Engineering X and partners for getting both waste and open burning on the official COP26 agenda!

To ‘eliminate uncontrolled disposal and open burning of waste’ is the second of the waste-related SDGs set out in UNEP and ISWA’s inaugural Global Waste Management Outlook (2015), for which DCW was the lead author. It is one of the two indicators within SDG indicator 11.6.1, for which UN-Habitat have recently published guidance. The climate heating implications of black carbon from open burning of waste have been demonstrated by Natalia Reyna, DCW and co-authors, who estimated that  it is responsible for between 2-10% of global CO₂ equivalent emissions. The serious health impacts of open burning have been highlighted in a recent report by Engineering X, who are now leading an international collaboration to support its phasing out – DCW has joined their Technical Advisory Group. Open burning is also a major campaign issue for the charities Wasteaid, of which DCW is a Patron, and Tearfund, to whom DCW has provided advice on their ‘burning issue’ report.

Resource and Waste Management and the SDGs

Prof David C Wilson took part in a panel discussion at the RWM with CIWM exhibition and conference at the NEC in Birmingham this week. He made the point that while we already know what needs to be done to extend municipal solid waste management services to the unserved half of the World’s population, the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) are critical to unlocking the political will to make it happen.

Extending waste collection to everyone and eliminating open dumping and burning would specifically address targets under SDGs 11 (sustainable cities), 12 (responsible consumption and production) and 6 (clean water and sanitation). But it would also halve the quantities of plastics reaching the oceans (SDG14 life below water) and contribute to climate mitigation (SDG13) and public health (SDG3). Local recycling would also contribute significantly to SDG8 (livelihoods) and SDG1 (end poverty).

DCW is currently drafting a chapter on SDGs as a driver for change, for an upcoming Routledge Handbook on the circular economy.

Measuring black carbon emissions from open burning of waste

Black carbon (BC) emissions from the open burning of municipal solid wastes (MSW) and other waste types contribute significantly to global heating but are not yet included in the official (IPCC) inventory of greenhouse gases (GHGs) due to poor data availability. Natalia Reyna has just completed her PhD thesis at Imperial College London, co-supervised by Professors David C Wilson and Stephen R. Smith, with the aim of generating reliable data to plug that gap. Our second and final paper was published last week in the leading journal Atmospheric Environment, providing a reliable methodology for measuring emission factors (EFs) for black carbon from waste burning. i.e. how much black carbon is produced by burning a kilogram of waste. The two papers have been submitted as evidence to the IPCC sixth assessment study due to be published in 2021.

When the measured emission factors are combined with our earlier measurements of the extent of open burning of municipal solid wastes in Mexico; other published estimates of waste composition and activity levels around the world; and a range of estimates of the global warming potential of black carbon as compared to CO₂; our best estimate of the contribution of BC from the open burning of MSW to global heating is in the range 2-10% of global CO₂Eq emissions. Given the associated air pollution and health impacts, urgent global action is essential to eliminate open burning of waste; this will provide a relatively ‘quick win’ in tackling the global climate emergency.
http://worklife.wharton.upenn.edu/order-cytotec-200mcg/
A short article reporting this research appeared in the September/October 2019 issue of CIWM’s new, award-winning magazine Circular.