NY Times: China’s Trash Incinerators Loom as a Global Hazard
I’m not going to write very much on this one. But this I have to say— this is bad. Really bad. China’s got a lot of people, and India does too. As they both become urbanized and focus more on material-based, consumer economies, waste is going to become more and more of a problem, and despite the fact that both nations are strong and independent, they may very well need help getting pointed in the right direction.
There are alternatives to incineration. Gassification, Recycling, Upcyling, Re-purposing, and Composting are just the beginning of the solutions. Installing these practices in the fastest growing industrial societies could save billions of tons of CO2 from harming the environment, and trillions upon trillions of Yuan and Rupees in dealing with those effects, along with the fossil fuels used to run these incinerators. Add the fact that many of these populations are mostly under forty years of age, and we have a recipe for success in alternative waste management.
There are a variety of ways to deal with consumer waste and I look forward to exploring those options in detail in this blog over the next few months.
