Waste to ‘waste-wise cities’ for a sustainable future
From industries to agriculture, from cities to households, human development generates a wake of waste that keeps on growing. Every year, humanity generates around 2.3 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW), including nearly 931 million tonnes of food waste and up to 37 million tonnes of plastic waste. To put this enormous waste in perspective: If all the MSW produced annually is stuffed into standard 12-meter long shipping containers placed end to end. The container convoy would circle the entire Earth, not just once, but 25 times.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN entity tasked with coordinating responses to environmental issues, warns that without urgent action, annual MSW could rise to 3.8 billion tonnes by 2050, causing significant land, water, and air degradation, as well as exacerbating the economic and health burden of countries. UNEP data shows that in 2020 the global cost of waste-management, including the hidden costs arising from the improper disposal of waste, such as pollution, poor health, and climate change, was an estimated US$361 billion.
Unless mitigatory measures to manage global waste are put in place, by 2050 the annual cost could reach a staggering $640 billion. Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly called trash or garbage, refers to the non-liquid waste generated by households, businesses, and institutions. It includes everyday items like packaging, food waste, packaging material, paper and yard waste, but excludes industrial, hazardous, and construction wastes. MSW is also a major contributor to global GHG emissions that precipitate climate change.
For a small country with a population of less than five million, the amount of waste generated per person in Kuwait is stupendously high. According to figures from the World Bank, Kuwait generates over three million tonnes of solid waste annually. This translates to around 1.7kg of waste generation per capita per day, which is more than double the global per capita average of 0.74 kg per day.
To alleviate the mounting waste problem, the government has been introducing advanced waste management facilities and developing new waste-water treatment plants. However, with limited land available, building more landfills and treatment plants is not a sustainable solution. Along with technological adaptations we also need to introduce social and legislative initiatives that tackle the unsustainable consumption patterns and waste generation practices seen in Kuwait.
A survey conducted a few years back by Kuwait Environment Public Authority revealed the low-level of public awareness on waste and its environmental consequences. This lack of knowledge highlights the need to increase consumer awareness on waste generation, as well as introduce the topic of rationalizing consumption and managing waste through public seminars and school curricula.
International Day of Zero Waste, observed annually on 30 March, underlines the importance of promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns, and highlights the vital role of zero-waste initiatives to accelerate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Day calls for fostering sound waste management practices, minimizing and preventing waste generation, and implementing policies and infrastructure that promote waste reduction, reuse, and recycling, thereby contributing to a circular economy that advances environmental sustainability.
In a linear economy, which is the traditional economic model, raw materials are extracted, processed and transformed into products that consumers use until discarding them as waste, with no concern for their ecological footprint and consequences. In contrast, a circular economy promotes sustainability, it reduces material use, redesigns materials, products, and services to be less resource intensive, and recaptures ‘waste’ to manufacture new materials and products.
According to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the UN agency that promotes socially and environmentally sustainable living habitats, cities play a crucial role in achieving zero waste. Although global cities occupy only around two percent of the world’s total land area, they account for over 70 percent of global GDP, 66 percent of energy consumption, 70 percent of GHG emissions, and more than 70 percent of waste.
The financial power and economic growth of cities in recent decades is driving a massive migration of people from rural to urban areas, especially in many developing countries. Today, more than half the world’s population of over 8.2 billion people live in cities; this figure is projected to reach nearly three-quarters of the population of 9.6 billion by 2050. The rapid urbanization and the concomitant increase in energy use, GHG emissions, and waste generation, makes urban agglomerations pivotal to effectively address waste-generation and -management.
Urbanization remains one of the most influential factors in twenty-first century developments. If well-planned and well-managed, urbanization can be a powerful tool for sustainable development in both developing and developed countries. Rather than being a major contributor to the global waste crisis, cities can be the source of solutions to its challenges, and a force towards achieving the Sustainable Development Agenda, and the Paris Agreement on Climate.
Given the rapid pace of global urbanization and the need to address the waste crisis, UN-Habitat launched ‘Waste-Wise Cities’, a comprehensive resource on best practices that help cities to manage waste more efficiently. While the initiative emphasizes that each city must deal with waste management issues based on their own context, it also encourages learning from the experience of other cities.
UN Habitat recommends several strategies that cities can promote and incorporate to become ‘Waste-Wise’, starting with assessing the quantity and type of waste generated by residents, establishments and businesses. Once waste is quantified, cities can then ensure that collection, transportation, and disposal of waste takes place in an environmentally safe and efficient manner. Cities should also empower and work with all waste stakeholders, public, private, and informal sectors, civil society organizations, and households to ensure successful waste management.
Other ‘waste wise’ strategies include promoting the reduction, reuse, and recycling of waste to derive maximum value from this source, as well as introducing a ‘rethink on waste’ through education and awareness efforts designed to change public attitudes towards waste. Meanwhile, policymakers can initiate long-term strategic plans and policies for urbanization with a focus on solid waste generation and treatment, as well as regular review of progress on these plans.
Additionally, to become ‘waste wise’, cities should consider providing financial and other incentives for proper disposal of waste at the individual and business level; and implementing innovative recycling techniques and technological alternatives, such as waste-to-energy schemes, with the focus being on eventually transitioning towards a circular and sustainable economy.
In Kuwait, considering the steady increase in population, and a nearly 100 percent rate of urbanization, the continuing population growth not only increases MSW generation, but also creates an explosion in demand by citizens for housing.Tardy responses to housing crises by authorities in the past, has led to a backlog of nearly 100,000 applications, and a waiting period of over 15 years, for subsidized housing.
In a bid to ameliorate the residential logjam, the current government has made development of greenfield residential cities around the country a major plank of its Master Development Plans. More than half a dozen new urban settlements covering an area of over 500 sq.km, including South Al-Mutlaa City, Jaber Al-Ahmad City, South Sabah Al-Ahmad City, and South Saad Al-Abdullah City, are now in various stages of project implementation.
Developing the mega urban agglomerations coming up in the country in alignment with strategies outlined in ‘Waste-Wise’ cities and in line with a circular economy will ensure that Kuwait transitions to becoming a regional and global leader in environmentally sustainable, economically resilient, socially equitable and financially prosperous living habitats, that benefit present and future generations.
