According to a World Bank study, the world generates 2.01 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with at least 33 per cent of that is not managed or disposed of in an environmentally safe manner. Out of the global waste composition, 44 per cent is generated by plastic. Most of the waste is disposed of in the landfills. However, the landfills are overflowing now and a majority of the plastic waste is ending up in the water bodies causing plastic pollution and has become a major threat for water creatures. There has been an increasing number of deaths of fishes because the plastics end up in their bodies choking them. Even terrestrial animals such as cows accidentally consume plastic waste dumped beside houses along with other vegetable wastes and they end up dead.
Most of the disposed waste is toxic and due to technological and political hindrances, it cannot be recycled. The World Bank report also mentions a person generates 1.2kg on an average global waste disposal scale. Jordan Bailey, a staff writer at the Saint Louis University, mentions that most of the developed countries ship much of their plastic waste to other developing countries for recycling purposes. Countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, India, and Indonesia accept more than 429 shipping containers of the U.S. waste every single day. This, according to Bailey, is a poor waste management cycle. The reason behind such a step is the belief that it is more economical to push plastics out of the country rather than to recycle them, according to Jenna Jambeck, an associate professor of Engineering at the University of Georgia.
Global solutions for this dangerous problem include reducing, reusing, and recycling (3R’s) of waste products, waste diversion projects, reforming the working and policies of thermal waste management plants, and stringent laws for careless people disposing of their wastes anywhere. Apart from this, it must be the collective responsibility of the global citizens to challenge this problem head-on and do their small part in solving this problem.
Dibyasha Das