As Guyana prepares to host the Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit, scheduled for July 23-25, 2025, at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) in Liliendaal, in an effort to galvanise concerted action on one aspect of efforts to prevent the earth pushing past yet another planetary limit in our headlong rush to consume our planet and ourselves, another pillar – the nascent zero-waste movement, one of the most promising of our last-ditch attempts to stave off climate change-wrought devastation seems to have fallen from the headlines.
Lost in the ever-increasing wars besetting an already-riven planet, the call to action as espoused by the United Nations seeks to bolster waste management and advance resource recovery and reuse to protect human and environmental health. In three words – reduce, reuse, and recycle. The “three Rs” of solid waste management are listed in order of importance for actions that should be taken to manage our trash.
As the UN has baldly stated, “Humanity’s unsustainable production and consumption practices are driving the planet towards destruction.
“Households, small businesses, and public service providers generate between 2.1 billion and 2.3 billion tons of municipal solid waste every year – from packaging and electronics to plastics and food. However, global waste management services are ill-equipped to handle this, with 2.7 billion people lacking access to solid waste collection and only 61-62 per cent of municipal solid waste being managed in controlled facilities. Humanity must act urgently to address the waste crisis.”
In its 2024 Global Waste Management Outlook report, the UN added: “Uncontrolled waste knows no national borders. It is carried by waterways across and between countries, while emissions from the burning and open dumping of waste are deposited in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and in the atmosphere. Pollution from waste is associated with a range of adverse health and environmental effects, many of which will last for generations.”
So, how do we act? According to ZeroWaste.org, one of the organisations taking the lead in promoting zero waste, rule number one is “don’t make waste” – avoid buying new things and creating trash.
The first rule is likely impossible to implement in our current overconsumption mode, but surely the other two – recycling and reusing products – will effect big changes? Will they? There is the problem: there is not enough reusing and recycling going on to cancel out the mountains of garbage we create every day. The global population is eight billion and continues to grow every day, and we depend on a limited number of natural resources for survival. Further, the way we produce, consume, and dispose of our products and our food accounts for nearly half of greenhouse gas emissions.
The waste crisis is tied to the triple planetary crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution, and affects us all. Perhaps, the solution has to be as radical as the problem and this is where another two Rs as some activists have suggested can make the difference – refuse what we don’t need and rot, ie compost, what we cannot refuse, reduce, reuse or recycle.
This will require a massive transformation in the mindset of most where more is always good and excess is best. We should remember the wisdom of our grandparents: Wilful waste brings woeful want – for the entire planet.
Will zero waste turn out to be a zero-sum game for the environment? We, through our actions, get to decide.
