Saving Ourselves From EC

Saving Ourselves From Environmental Collapse

(This was penned in 2022)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but,

We may be heading towards an ecological disaster of unprecedented and epic proportions.

If mass action not taken now, then environmental collapse is imminent.

We have only the next 8 years to truly reclaim our landfills, completely stop unsustainable exploitation of earth's precious resources and save ourselves in the process.

A call to mass action !

Lemme explain :-

The world generates 2.2 billion tons of trash every year.

We have according to my own best estimate 30,000 - 35,000 total landfill sites around the world.

Including both the active and closed sites.

Active landfill sites are also being filled to the brim. Many are already exceeding their capacities.

Landfill is not a new, but a 5000 year old concept when humans first decided that they should designate a separate area to dump waste, things and refuse that needs to be dumped / gotten rid of or they no longer need.

Out of the 5000 years, 4,800 years of humanity's trash was manageable, even sustainable and very minuscule in comparison to what it is now. In 1822, mass production and Industrial revolution were only being conceived and not a reality yet.

Most of what humans used to throw away was organic and biodegradable. Plastic and detergents were not even invented yet.

What happened roughly in the next 200 years has what led to our situation now.

Even though our progress and growth have led to a general well-being for all, massive population growth and also resulting in most humans that have ever existed at the same time on this planet.

We did well in terms of increasing our numbers and providing for every need and want imaginable. Creating industries and leisure activities, entertainment, sports and cinemas out of nothing.

We were also able to meet the growing food needs and feed so many with mechanized farming and modern agriculture techniques.

That part is much appreciated. 

Massive Industrialization and Capitalism obviously not perfect companions, have enabled the lives and led to survival of so many.

However, the legacy trash they left behind and the massive trash we ourselves generate have to be dealt with.

We might crumble under the weight of our own garbage.

We are not able to recycle, we are not able to upcycle. We are not able to design a truly sustainable circular economy just yet.

Only thing we are good at is to litter our planet with more garbage, excesses and rampant consumerism.

Situation is dire,

That we are standing on a brink of an environmental collapse.

Environmental collapse also leads to collapse of our food systems. Climate migration won't solve anything.

If we go blindly with our current rate of exploitation and its year on year increase, at some point after the next 8 years we will experience environmental collapse.

When food systems collapse, mass starvation takes place. We die like insects !

When we simulate a model, things do not appear rosy. Even if we accommodate all the climate action that we have taken in the last decade, we still have much to do.

That's because of two reasons of which the main cause and culprit is all the landfill sites around the world :-

1. Methane

2. Leachate

Add to this our failure so far in designing a truly circular economy.

This ensures that we will also generate 2.2 billion tons and more of garbage in 2023, 2.2 billion tons and more of garbage in 2024 and so on ...

One big landfill site, emits 2 million tons of methane in a year and leaks 2 million liters of toxic leachate in the environment which percolates to the ground water and add to lead and arsenic poisoning among other harmful substances.

Capitalism gets a bad name as we are functioning under a linear economy with our endless quest for growth on a planet with finite resources, having no clue what to do with our trash.

One thing or rather an idea, to ponder would be landfill capitalism, wherein a millionaire or a billionaire owning big firm / huge company is awarded the contract to clean up a landfill, profit from all the material recovery and the raw materials or the energy the capitalist is able to generate by incineration of some of the flammables from the trash.

Obviously, it needs to be monitored to ensure that Biomining and all the material recovery is taking place, which would then reduce the need to extract new resources from earth.

The way the world trash is being handled currently is that humanity is brushing this global problem under the carpet in hope that it has disappeared.

Our attitude to our trash is haphazard and ignorant. It may come to bite us in a way that threatens our existence, our survival and that of our loved ones.

In all the models, we can simulate, we die. More climate action will only postpone our fate.

But to actually stop it, world needs to recover all the materials from its own garbage and use it across industries, instead of extraction of the new.

Simultaneously, we need to upend our efforts to design a truly circular economy in every product, in every service that we consume.

Solid waste management industry and the select few people they employ around the world are currently taking all the burden for all the waste that we collectively generate.

That is not the right way of dealing with the problem. Each person on earth has to contribute and share responsibility in the same way as every person contributes to the massive waste problem the world has.

A worldwide program which enables every person to contribute is much needed !

We also need Zero Food Loss, Zero Food Wastage, Zero Hunger, Zero Poverty Programme to be run around the world.

If the world is able to launch and run these two programmes worldwide successfully, if humans come together and unite, we can achieve Zero Hunger, Zero Food Loss, Zero Food Wastages, Zero Poverty in the first year itself !

We can also clear all the landfills on earth to 60 - 70% by the the end of third year.

That's the good part - we have potential to come together and create a greater good, ensuring our survival in the process !

- Anuj Chugh