AS the world prepares for the climate-change meeting early next month in Poznan, Poland, we urge the government to incorporate zero-waste into its plans and negotiations.

Waste-disposal methods practised worldwide drive climate change by releasing greenhouse gases such as methane from landfills and carbon dioxide from incinerators.

Only a small percentage of the world’s greenhouse emissions are attributed to wastedisposal. However, this grossly understates this sector’s contribution to climate change.

Furthermore, landfilling and incinerating waste deprive industry and agriculture of recycled materials and compost, leading to greater pressure on resources and more greenhouse gas emissions.

Landfilling and incinerating waste also fuel a linear production and consumption system that requires the continual use of energy and raw materials to create new goods.

We are beset by people selling “waste-to-energy” incinerators.

They claim that generating energy by incinerating waste is a win-win solution to the waste and energy crisis.

The truth, however, is that incinerators actually waste energy.

When materials that could be reused, recycled or composted are incinerated, it destroys the energy-saving potential of putting those materials to better use.

Recycling, for instance, saves three to five times the energy that waste-incinerator power plants generate.

Incinerators are also net energy losers when the embodied energy of the burned materials is taken into account. For those reasons, “waste-to-energy” plants should be more aptly named “waste-of-energy” plants.

On the other hand, zero-waste is a strategy to reduce waste disposal in landfills and incinerators and dramatically reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

For example, research shows that waste-reduction strategies such as waste prevention, recycling and composting in the United States could cut emissions equal to closing 21 per cent of its coal-fired power plants.

For a given investment, zero-waste results in greater emission reductions than any other strategy.

It is also less expensive than other waste-management strategies.

Zero-waste also produces more jobs for less investment than any other waste management strategy and reduces pollution as it incorporates clean production.

Despite the fact that incinerators are net energy losers and significant contributors to climate change, the waste industry is trying to secure subsidies it does not deserve through the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism.

The bottom line is that dirty technologies cannot clean the climate — and these climate cons should not receive subsidies meant for advancing true climate-change solutions.

To achieve significant reductions through zero-waste, Malaysian negotiators in Poznan should commit to the following:

- no financing, including carbon credits or other incentives, shall be given to projects which conflict with zero-waste (such as incinerators and other thermal waste technologies, landfills and landfill gas systems);

- governments will incrementally reduce the amount of waste disposed of; and,

- countries will emphasise waste prevention, reuse, safe recycling and composting as means to reduce disposal.

We urge the government to adopt zero-waste approaches that will radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the need for extraction, processing and the transport of raw materials as well as avoiding emissions from disposal (incineration, landfilling, open dumping and open burning).

These savings far exceed the emissions from waste disposal facilities and can play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions throughout the economy.

S.M. MOHAMED IDRIS for Consumers Association of Penang

Source: NST – November 14, 2008