Zero Waste to Zero Emissions: Waste management essential to achieving climate change targets, finds GAIA report

04 Oct 2022 --- Improving waste management is an essential and dangerously unrecognized key to reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to a report released today by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). The report’s authors stress that international governments must incorporate waste management strategies into their climate change plans to keep warming beneath 1.5 degrees.

The report titled Zero Waste to Zero Emissions: How Reducing Waste is a Climate Game Changer details how waste from materials like plastic and food contributes roughly 20% to global methane emissions. It calls for improved management of waste goods, though deems waste-to-energy practices such as incineration “unacceptable.”  

Claire Arkin, global communications lead at GAIA, tells PackagingInsights that the report and its findings shed important light on a neglected issue in the climate change debate. 

“As the critical importance of tackling methane becomes more felt, waste, which is the third largest source of methane emissions, will certainly get more attention, as we’re already seeing,” she says. 

“A reason why waste hasn’t necessarily had the spotlight in climate spaces in the past is that the full scope of the problem, and its solutions, hadn’t yet been widely recognized. Once people start to understand that by reducing waste, we’re also reducing emissions from many other sectors like energy, manufacturing, and transportation, to name a few, it’s hard to deny the need for action.” 

Waste to methane 
The waste sector accounts for 3.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, equating to a fifth of global methane emissions. 

Introducing better waste management policies such as waste separation, recycling and composting could cut total emissions from the waste sector by more than 1.4 billion tons, equivalent to the annual emissions of 300 million cars – or taking all motor vehicles in the US off the road for a year, says the report.    

Better waste management could also cut waste sector emissions by 84% (1.4 billion tons) and significantly reduce emissions in other sectors. 

Preventing waste and avoiding use of incineration must be enforced globally, says GAIA.In order to keep global warming below 1.5°C, as set out in the Paris Agreement, and prevent “catastrophic climate change,” GAIA is urging global leaders to take urgent action on waste by:

• Incorporating zero waste goals and policies into climate mitigation and adaptation plans.
• Prioritizing food waste prevention and single-use plastic ban.
• Instituting separate collection and treatment of organic waste.
• Investing in waste management systems, recycling, and composting capacity.
• Establishing institutional frameworks and financial incentives for zero waste, including regulations, educational and outreach programs, and subsidies for recycling and composting. 

COP27 
The report’s release comes shortly before the next UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt next month. Waste management will be highlighted at the summit, where issues surrounding Africa and its place in climate change are a focus. 

“Waste management will be one of the critical topics tackled at COP27, where host nation Egypt plans to put forward the Africa Waste Initiative, an initiative hoping to catalyze both adaptation and mitigation solutions and aiming at treating and recycling 50% of the waste produced in Africa by 2050,” says Arkin. 

Experts such as those at GAIA hope political leaders will use COP27 to act on the findings in the report and make waste management improvements a central part of their climate pledges. 

Janez Potočnik, co-chair of the International Resource Panel of the UN Environment Programme, and former European commissioner for the environment, states: “This report demonstrates the huge importance of aligning our waste systems with climate goals. It shows how cities are already working to eliminate GHG emissions from waste while building climate resilience and creating livelihoods.” Methane emissions from landfills account for a fifth of global emissions.

“It highlights the absolute necessity of reducing root sources of waste through changing our production and consumption patterns – using all the tools at our disposal to achieve the deep emissions reductions we need.”

City changes 
Part of the report takes several global cities as examples and highlights the emissions reductions that could be achieved in each if legislative changes are enacted. 

These were: Bandung (Indonesia), Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), Detroit (USA), eThekwini (South Africa), Lviv (Ukraine), São Paulo (Brazil), Seoul (South Korea), and Temuco (Chile). The selection was made to represent a wide range of conditions and circumstances, including climates, waste generation patterns, affluence and poverty, and current waste management systems. 

GAIA found that these eight cities could achieve average emissions reductions of 84%. Scaled up to a global level (assuming comparable actions taken in other cities and countries around the world), this represents a potential reduction of 1.4 billion tons of GHG globally (3% of the global total) and a reduction of 42 million tons in methane emissions (13% of the global total). 

“GAIA has a strong base of membership in those cities, and we worked with those core partners to source the data on waste emissions and shaped the zero waste interventions that we used to measure the “Road to Zero Waste” scenario, as well as the recommendations,” says Arkin.  

“Policymakers must pass plastic reduction bills that will spur innovation from the private sector, like bans on the most polluting plastic products and packaging.” 

“Secondly, with the Global Methane Pledge and national waste reduction and circular economy legislation around the globe, governments will be looking to the private sector to help make good on their commitments.” 

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for the private sector to scale up reuse systems, take-back and repair programs and waste management infrastructure like municipal composting,” she concludes. 

By Louis Gore-Langton