WE ARE IN A

WASTE

CRISIS

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Our current global waste management systems simply cannot keep up with the amount of waste we produce today. An estimated 2.01 billion metric tons of municipal solid waste are produced annually, which is only expected to grow up to 3.40 billion by 2050. It is often difficult to understand the scale of our waste problem, especially since it seems like such a faraway issue but as landfills overflow and our waste end up in rivers and oceans, how we manage our waste needs to take a front seat in our sustainable discussions.

Malaysia produces 38,000 tonnes of waste daily, of which 31.9% is disposed of by open burning and 6.5% is dumped into river systems. There is a multitude of environmental issues associated with improper disposal of solid waste, including greenhouse gas emissions, damage and leaching of toxic pollutants into the natural environment which harms wildlife and habitats.

Simply put: we are running out of space for our waste. There are 146 active landfills in Malaysia, only 16 of which are managed using techniques to prevent greenhouse gas emissions and leachates from contaminating the environment, and these are very quickly filling up.

Food waste is a major contributor to solid waste, with a third of all food produced for human consumption being wasted. The issue of food waste is deceiving as we would not expect that food waste, something that can decompose, would be harmful to the environment like a non-biodegradable material like plastic would be. However, in the oxygen-depleted environment of a landfill, food decomposes to release potent greenhouse gases, including methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases in terms of global warming potential. If food waste were a country, it’d be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, just after the US and China. To make matters worse, Malaysia was the top importer of plastic waste in 2016 ….

How can we accept other countries’ waste when we ourselves cannot manage our waste?

(Image and quote from Clean Malaysia)

It’s not just worrying; it’s shocking, alarming and appalling.

GOING ZERO WASTE

So, what can we do? Undoubtedly, large-scale changes and policies need to be made to collect and safely dispose of waste

that cannot be otherwise reused or recycled. Reducing our waste is also imperative to lessening our waste crisis; we have less waste to deal with by consuming less. This is the aim of the zero waste movement which centres around a circular economy, where waste can be used as an input, to be reused or repurposed, rather than an output. According to Zero Waste Malaysia, a non-profit organisation advocating for sustainable living, the movement also embraces a lower consumption lifestyle where we shift our mindsets away from our current take-make-dispose culture.

Zero waste isn’t about reducing our waste completely, it’s about doing our best by consuming and handling our waste with sustainability in mind. Imagine how much less waste we could create as a population if we all made small changes to our lives; we don't need a few people doing zero waste perfectly, we need 7 billion people doing it imperfectly.

(Image from CleanLink)

The concept of zero waste can be applied to all aspects of our lives, including our food consumption and buying habits. With the diverse and expansive food choices available at our fingertips, it is often tempting to over-purchase at the grocery store. By thinking through a zero-waste lens, we could purchase only the food we need for the coming week, by planning and thinking about what each ingredient is going to be used for, rather than mindlessly buying food. We could also be creative with food scraps and other ‘unavoidable’ food waste by making recipes that utilize, rather than discard these ingredients, like veggie stock or using broccoli in a stir fry. Living a zero-waste lifestyle is about being mindful of the waste we produce and being imaginative with how everything can be reused and repurposed.

- Nicole Sutton & Li-Anne Soo