To set its nations on the path toward zero-waste communities, the U.K. has adopted policies similar to countries that already have some of the most successful waste management schemes, such as The Netherlands and Germany.

Until 2000, the household recycling and composting rate for the entire U.K. was less than 10 percent, but in 2006 and 2007, that figure passed 30 percent. To keep the momentum going, the U.K. Government has set goals for itself for future progress: 40 percent by 2010, 45 percent by 2015 and 50 percent by 2020, according to England’s Waste Strategy Annual Progress Report (EWSAPR).

Jane-Marie Fatkin, a 25-year-old American living in Surrey, says she thinks England is more mindful of recycling than the U.S.

With a population of more than 61 million, the U.K.'s waste strategy is vital throughout England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Photo: CIA.gov

“I think this is due to the space issue. They have to be mindful of it, because a ton of people are populating such a small island, and they don’t want to live in a trash bin. Whereas, in America, it seems that it is not as big of an issue, logistically, because of space.”

National Waste Strategies

Adequate waste collection and waste disposal are issues that the U.K. takes seriously, as made clear by the number of departments and organizations that have been formed in order to keep the countries organized and up-to-date in these matters.

The U.K. government ideally wants to reduce, or at least stabilize, the rate at which waste is created. It encourages the use of as few natural resources as possible in the manufacturing of goods, as well as efforts to recover value from whatever materials remain post-use.

According to the EWSAPR, all U.K. countries have adopted variations of essentially the same hierarchy of waste management prioritization, which is:

1. Waste prevention
2. Reuse
3. Recycling and composting
4. Disposal with energy recovery
5. Disposal

The government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is responsible for maintaining the National Waste Strategy, umbrella guidelines and directives which are consulted by the individual countries of the U.K.

In 1990, the U.K.’s Environmental Protection Act (EPA) set forth a number of eco-conscious standards, including limits on emissions and guidelines for issuing waste disposal licenses. Added to the EPA five years later, the Environment Act of 1995 directed the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to prepare a National Waste Strategy for England and Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to create a strategy for Scotland.

England’s Waste Plan

According to the EWSAPR, the most recently updated version of the strategy for England is the WS2007, which was published in 2007 and addresses:

• Implementing effective regulation
• Creating financial incentives for recycling
• Increasing resource efficiency
• Stimulating investment in waste collection and treatment
• Improving local and regional governance
• Promoting public awareness
• Standardizing methods for collecting data

England’s strategy claims that all parts of society are responsible for safe and adequate waste management. Businesses must rethink the design of their products, packaging and processes in order to minimize waste, as well as incorporate recycled materials and take responsibility for products to the end of their life cycles.

Consumers, too, must take responsibility for reducing waste by recycling in their homes and choosing less wasteful products and services when shopping.

Scotland has set a goal of achieving a 40 percent recycling rate by the end of 2010. Photo: Flickr/Ben

Scotland’s Waste Plan

In 1999, SEPA and the Scottish Executive launched Scotland’s National Waste Strategy, with an updated National Waste Plan published in 2003.

At the time of the NWP’s publication, Scotland was sending more than 90 percent of its municipal waste to landfills, therefore major goals included reducing the landfilling of biodegradable waste and beginning successful recycling and composting initiatives.

In 2007, Scotland transferred responsibility for the National Waste Management Plan to the Scottish Ministry.

In January 2008, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment issued the statement that the country would be moving toward a goal of zero waste, along with the rest of the U.K., as well as most other countries in the European Union.

Wales’ Waste Plan

In accordance with the Environment Act of 1995, the Welsh Assembly also created a national waste strategy, called Wise About Waste. The plan includes measures to increase the use of recycled and composted materials in both the public and private sectors, as well as campaigns to raise public awareness and implement more environmentally friendly methods for managing waste.

In 2002, as part of the Wise About Waste strategy, Wales directed its 22 local authorities to individually achieve, at minimum, a 15 percent recycling and composting rate by 2003 or 2004. However, by the directive’s deadline, only 13 authorities were able to meet this goal. In fact, in 2003 and 2004, the country’s collective recycling rate was only about 9.8 percent, with composting at 6.4 percent, making for a combined rate of a little more than 16 percent, according to the Welsh Assembly.

However the government of Wales said it will continue to work with all authorities that did not reach their 2003 and 2004 goal in order to ensure all municipalities achieve by 2009 or 2010 a minimum rate of 15 percent each for recycling and composting, with a combined rate of 40 percent.

Northern Ireland’s Waste Plan

The Department of the Environment (DOE) was created in 1999 by the Northern Ireland Act of 1998 and the Departments (Northern Ireland) Order of 1999. The DOE, in collaboration with the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, is responsible for regulating waste, including the drafting of new management policies and the improvement of existing ones.

Northern Ireland drafted an initial Waste Management Strategy in 2000, but in 2006, the plan was reviewed and an updated strategy, called Towards Resources Management, was published to carry the country through the year 2020. This current waste management scheme focuses on improving past weaknesses, including:

• Waste prevention
• Effective leadership
• Waste management facilities
• Consideration of all waste types
• Data collection
• Combat of illegal waste activities

Generation of Waste

In 2007 and 2008, England generated 28.5 million tons of municipal waste. That’s a lot of trash, but that’s also a 2.2 percent decrease from the 29.1 million tons that were generated in 2006 and 2007. Additionally, the total household waste generated in England also experienced a decrease during that period of time, from 25.8 to 25.3 million tons, according to Defra.

England is currently experimenting with converting waste into energy. At some facilities, material is not just simply incinerated, but the resulting gases are recovered and reused, or the resulting materials are refined and reused. Photo: Flickr/Dimitry B

The decline in household waste reflects the improved rate of waste generated per person in England. After taking into consideration volumes of recycled and composted waste, the household waste generated per person in England has decreased from 450 kilograms in 2000 and 2001 to 324 kilograms in 2007 and 2008, according to Defra – a substantial 22 percent decrease.

Mary Finch, a 28-year-old American living in Belfast, says that although most of Northern Ireland is very clean, rubbish is a visible problem in her city.

“I see a lot of trash on the street here, it shocked me at first,” she says. “Here everyone just tosses their food wrappers, cups, etc., in the street as they are walking. A city sweeper truck comes by our street twice a week and cleans everything up.”

Recycling and Composting

Household recycling rates in England have steadily risen in recent years, and data from 2007 and 2008 puts the figure at 34.5 percent, according to Defra.

Fatkin points out ways the English authorities try to promote recycling: “Trash isn’t a visible problem in Surrey,” she says. “Most people recycle most of their waste. I know the county council works hard to ensure that people recycle – by giving small bins and only collecting once every two weeks. So people don’t really have a choice but to recycle.”

According to the Environment Agency, in 2006 and 2007, the amount of material collected from households for recycling was 8 million tons and included:

• 36 percent compost
• 19 percent paper and cardboard
• 10 percent glass
• 7 percent scrap metal and miscellaneous

With so much biodegradable waste collected from homes, England’s potential for composting is huge. The organization WRAP, which encourages the efficient use of resources in the U.K., along with environmental agencies, initiated the Waste Protocols Project. The project’s goal is to facilitate Quality Protocols in order to determine how to better reuse certain waste materials, such as food, according to the EWSAPR.

In March 2007, the project launched a Quality Protocol to produce high-standard compost from biodegradable waste, including plant waste. According to the EWSAPR, by May 2008, the number of participating producers equaled 157 sites composting 2,544,500 input tons annually.

Of recycling in Belfast, Finch says, “The recycling is really good. Everyone does recycle, as it is pushed by the city. You get three trash cans per house: a green one for recyclables, a brown one for compost and a black one for trash. The city picks them all up every week.”

Waste Disposal

England is sending approximately 100 million tons of waste to landfills each year, of which about two-thirds, or 67 million tonnes, is biodegradable material. But if the country is going to comply with the EU Landfill Directive, which sets limitations on the amount of waste that EU countries are permitted to dispose of in this way, England will have to dramatically decrease this landfill rate.

The EU Landfill Directive requires landfilled biodegradable municipal waste in England to be reduced to 11.2 million tons in 2010, 7.5 million tons in 2013 and 5.2 million tons in 2020.

Not only is England under the binding obligations of the EU directive, but research shows that England will, in fact, run out of landfill capacity for household waste by the year 2020, with London’s non-hazardous landfill sites expected to be filled to capacity by the end of 2010.

In 2003, Scotland passed laws requiring that landfills only accept pre-treated wastes in an effort to reduce the volume of waste and minimize disposal costs. Treatment also reduces biodegradability, as waste biodegrading in landfills releases harmful greenhouse gases, according to SEPA.

In 2007 and 2008, Scotland landfilled 1.37 million tons of biodegradable municipal waste, and approximately 2.33 million tons (66 percent) of Scotland’s municipal waste was sent to landfills, according to SEPA.

Progress

As part of the EU, the countries of the U.K. are obligated to adhere to the EU Waste Framework Directive, including the revisions made to the directive in June 2008 by the Council of Environment Ministers and the European Parliament in June 2008. Scheduled to go into effect in 2010, the main changes include EU-wide targets for reuse and recycling 50 percent of household waste by the year 2020.

To ensure they reach these goals, each country will look to its national plan strategy in order to gradually minimize waste and increase recycling and prevention.

Whether some of the U.K. countries’ goals can be realistically achieved on deadline or not remains to be seen. However, it’s clear that with so many initiatives in place, the citizens are ready to work toward making a positive impact.

With a current population of close to 200 million and a stable population growth rate (1 percent in 2009), Brazil’s waste management challenges are not like those of countries such as India or China, which are experiencing rapid urban growth, according to the CIA.

Perhaps Brazil’s greatest waste management hurdle to overcome is acquiring adequate financing. But despite this difficulty, the country’s lawmakers and municipal authorities have made it clear they want to make improvements to their cities’ systems.

Municipalities have therefore tried to find creative, responsible solutions to many of their problems in order to deliver satisfactory collection services, recycling programs and street cleaning to their citizens.

According to the CIA, 86 percent of Brazil's population lives in urban areas, making waste management crucial when dealing with a dense population. Photo: Geoingo.amu.edu

Federal Legislation

The Brazilian Federal Constitution makes municipalities responsible for protecting their environment, limiting pollution and contamination, and preserving forests and wildlife.

According to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual, cities are granted the right to create their own laws, provided they pertain to matters of local public interest such as waste management and environmental policy, to accomplish these goals.

There is no all-inclusive federal law that provides guidelines for how to manage the country’s various types of waste materials. Instead, Brazil tends to regulate the most dangerous and prevalent components of the waste stream as they begin to raise special concern. Oil, tires, pesticide containers and batteries are some examples, according to EIATrack.

Environmental Licenses

To ensure that companies and organizations operate in ways that are safe to both the country’s people and natural resources, Brazilian lawmakers established a federal law to set forth a national environmental policy. Included in this policy is the power to grant environmental licenses.

According to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual, environmental licenses are granted to companies as a way to regulate any potentially contaminating activities, such as construction or operations. This means that any company wanting to use environmental resources cannot move forward without first applying for, and being granted, an environmental license by Brazil’s National Environmental System (SISNAMA).

More specifically, these licenses assign responsibilities to a company as well as establish the criteria for environmental impact assessments both prior to and during company action, such as the installation of a sanitary landfill. Environmental licenses must be renewed periodically for operations to continue.

Collection Services

According to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual, the solid waste stream in Brazil is mainly comprised of the following:

• Organic matter – 65 percent
• Paper – 25 percent
• Metal – 4 percent
• Glass – 3 percent
• Plastic – 3 percent

Data collected in the 2008 Ciclosoft Survey, reported by CEMPRE News, reveals that 405 Brazilian municipalities do separate these waste materials, representing 7 percent of the country’s total municipalities. The number of municipalities separating their waste increased nearly 25 percent since the 2006 survey, which reported that only 327 were sorting their trash.

The waste collection systems in these 405 municipalities use a combination of operating methods. According to CEMPRE News, 50 percent of the municipalities use door-to-door service, 26 percent use collection points and 43 percent collaborate with street waste picker cooperatives.

In Brazil, waste management systems are run by individual municipalities. Rural areas are often harder to clean up, as they do not have as many resources for disposal. Photo: Amanda Wills, Earth911.com

Robyn Pereira is a 36-year-old American writer and translator who has lived in Brazil for four years. She and her Brazilian husband live in the city of Juiz de Fora, in the state of Minas Gerais, which is located in the southeastern region of the country.

Pereira says that, in her experience, municipal trash pickup for residential neighborhoods is generally three times a week. “However, in poorer neighborhoods,” she says, “trash is a visible problem, and the amount of trash seen on the street tends to be a pretty good indicator of the poverty level of any given area.”

According to the 2008 Ciclosoft Survey, around 26 million Brazilians, or 14 percent of the population, receive separated waste collection service – an increase of one million people since the 2006 survey was conducted.

Collection services are more prevalent in the south and southeast areas of Brazil. Based on weight, materials with the highest collection rates include plastics, glass and metals, with paper and cardboard far outweighing all the others, according to CEMPRE News.

In countries like Brazil where waste management systems are run by individual municipalities rather than the federal government, the nation’s larger cities are often at an advantage. This is because a large city will likely have more resources and a greater revenue stream to apply to its waste operations.

However, Brazil is comprised of mostly small cities, with 80 percent of its municipalities having a population of fewer than 30,000. Naturally, this places resource limitations and financial strain on most of these small-city governments, according to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual.

Urban Cleaning

Some Brazilian municipalities choose to contract specialized companies to handle collection, sorting and street cleaning services. In these cases, municipalities are spared from having to manage the hiring, monitoring and compensation of hundreds of sanitation workers, while still ensuring their cities stay clean.

“In the main areas of the city center, trash is not a problem,” says Pereira. “There are daily street sweepers who are uniformed and hand-sweep the sidewalks, gutters and main pedestrian malls. There is also daily municipal garbage pickup in the center for both residential and businesses. [And] throughout the city center and surrounding middle-class neighborhoods, there are bright orange designated bins on every corner.”

For example, the Rio de Janeiro City Urban Cleaning Company (COMLURB) is an independent company contracted by the city, therefore it’s responsible for managing its own employees, setting its own budget and determining its own operations. In addition to manpower, it also provides the municipality with machinery, equipment and expertise, according to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual.

In some cities, Rio de Janeiro included, when cleaning contracts for low-income communities are established, every effort is made to guarantee that local labor will be employed to carry out the waste collection and street cleaning services for the community. This creates local jobs and develops community awareness of public health and environmental issues.

For example, according to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual, COMLURB funds the services of these low-income community cleaning associations, as well as provides technical support and equipment. However, the associations hire and manage their own employees. This type of system is present in almost all of Rio de Janeiro’s informal settlements and has worked well so far, although there are still individuals who independently scavenge for recyclables in urban areas.

CEMPRE and Recycling

In 1992, private companies in Brazil established the Brazilian Business Commitment for Recycling (CEMPRE), a nonprofit organization that promotes recycling and waste elimination. The organization issues publications, conducts technical research, holds seminars and maintains databases.

CEMPRE’s goal is to persuade people in influential positions, such as mayors and company CEOs, to support recycling and waste elimination programs, as well as to improve the working conditions of waste pickers. The organization has also worked hard to standardize packaging symbols, according to an EPA case study.

Brazil's overall recycling rate is better than average, especially in larger cities such as Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Beyondchron.org

Overall, Brazilian recycling rates are fair, especially concerning paper, steel and aluminum, despite the fact that there are no structured municipal recycling programs. The recovery of recyclable material is largely left to waste pickers, who earn a living by collecting recyclables and selling them to private recycling companies.

“There is essentially a small army of recycling ‘entrepreneurs’ – individuals with two-wheeled chaises who canvas neighborhoods and go through residential and business trash to separate out recyclable paper, plastic, glass and metal,” says Pereira.

“There are several private recycling depots around the city, and these recycling soldiers line up on the blocks outside, separating their goods on the street before taking them in to be weighed.”

In 2006, Brazil recycled 3.9 million tons, or 45 percent, of the paper materials produced that year. Taking into consideration only the paper used in packaging, the recycling rate is even higher at 70 percent, according to CEMPRE News.

According to the World Steel Association, in 2007, Brazil’s recycling rate for steel cans was 49 percent, and in 2005, the country managed to recycle an incredible 96 percent of the aluminum cans sold that year – almost 9.4 million cans.

Brazil does compost its organic waste, with the quality of the final product being standardized. Any commercial compost created from domestic materials must adhere to minimum values set forth by the country’s Ministry of Agriculture. For example, the amount of organic matter, nitrogen, humidity and pH level are all regulated, according to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual.

Other Waste

In Brazil, the average waste produced in the construction of new buildings is approximately 660 pounds per square meter. This waste is comprised mainly of mortar (63 percent) and concrete (29 percent), as well as wood, plastic, cardboard, glass, metal, ceramics and soil, according to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual.

If small amounts of this construction waste are illegally disposed of in a city, the urban cleaning company will collect and transport the waste. However, Brazil tries to adhere to the “polluter pays” principle, and under such, it is the responsibility of the construction or demolition companies to safely remove large amounts of waste.

Another component of special waste is medical waste. If waste in clinics, doctor’s offices and hospitals is not handled and disposed of properly, it can spread infection and disease. When municipal hospitals in Rio de Janeiro introduced separate waste containers and stricter sanitation procedures, the rate of hospitalization from such infections was reduced by 80 percent.

According to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual, in hospitals in Brazil, plastic trash bags are color-coded accordingly:

• Transparent – common waste, recyclable
• Opaque colors – common waste, non-recyclable
• Cream – infectious or special waste (except radioactive waste)

After being removed from hospitals, medical waste is then transferred to a septic trench landfill, which is designed to safely hold medical waste.

In Brazil, radioactive waste is handled, stored and disposed of by the National Nuclear Energy Commission. Some disposal methods include depositing the waste in underground saline caves, encapsulating the waste in impermeable concrete and burying it underground, or encapsulating the waste in impermeable concrete and dumping it in the ocean, according to the EPA. The last method has been highly criticized by environmentalists and is even prohibited in some countries, including the U.S.

Landfills

Final waste disposal can be problematic in Latin American countries. Incineration is a relatively effective method, however incinerators are expensive to purchase, operate and maintain, eliminating them as an option for most of the cities in Brazil.

Instead, Brazil relies on dumps and landfills. Pereira says her city’s landfill is “as tidy as they come” and describes the layers of waste as appearing to be very organized, like reverse strip mining.

While larger urban areas have advanced landfills, some lower-income neighborhoods have untreated dumping areas such as the one above in Victoria, Brazil. However, with increased funding, more dumps are being upgraded or closed. Photo: Fao.org

However, Pereira has also seen the effects of unsanitary dumping in Brazil. “There is a favela [shanty town] in Rio that the elevated expressway cuts through on your way from the airport to the city, [and] you can see home waste dumping directly into open sewers that lead straight to the bay,” she says.

“This bay, Guanabara, stinks, has a black sludge floating on it and piles of plastic trash floating on top of that. It’s awful and, unfortunately, one of the first things that people see when coming to Brazil, as it is right outside the airport.

According to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual, as municipality administrators in Brazil begin to understand the risks associated with untreated waste in open dumping areas, and acquire sufficient funding, more and more dumps are being closed or converted to sanitary landfills.

At some Brazilian landfills, clean development mechanism (CDM) projects have been approved to collect the gases produced on-site. For example, at a landfill in Nova Iguaçu (Rio de Janeiro area), methane is being collected and converted into electricity. This process is expected to eliminate 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2012, according to the World Bank.

Future Progress

It seems that the majority of Brazil’s municipal authorities are aware that efficient waste management is important to citizens. As shown by their willingness to participate in multi-country conferences, strides towards improvements are being made.

For example, in 2003 and 2005, segregators from several Latin American countries met in Brazil at the first and second Latin American Congress of Recyclable Material Segregators to discuss waste management strategies, according to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual.

And in 2008, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Green and Healthy Environments Project in Sao Paulo to gather city authorities interested in promoting environmental preservation, conservation and the protection of public health. The Green and Healthy project aims to establish community health advocates in Brazil, as well as strengthen the nation’s policies related to housing, the environment and climate change. Already, the project has assessed conditions pertaining to water resources, sanitation, urban parks, sustainable building and more, according to a UNEP report.

As Brazilian authorities continue to seek information regarding better technology and safer practices, and strive to apply them to waste management operations, the country hopes to continue on a path toward responsible urban living.

In 2004, the urban areas of China generated approximately 209 million tons of municipal solid waste, catapulting the nation past the U.S. as the largest generator of waste in the world.

Since then, that figure has increased at an accelerated rate. Currently, China is estimated to produce more than 220 million tons of municipal waste annually, and due to the country’s rapid population growth and waste management structures, the amount is projected to reach a shocking 533 million tons by the year 2030, according to the World Bank.

As the figures continue to rise, the question of what to do with all this trash becomes more and more important. According to research done by the China Environment Forum in conjunction with Western Kentucky University, the majority of China’s urban landfills are expected to reach capacity by 2020, meaning an additional 1,400 will need to be established. Projections like this are causing a panic among Chinese officials.

With more than one billion people, China is the most populated country in the world, making waste management imperative to preserving China's precious space. Photo: Worldtravels.com

In the course of the next several decades, municipal authorities will not be able to stop the waste stream from growing. However, experts say if China responds relatively quickly, and with the appropriate actions, the rate at which it grows could be dramatically reduced.

Residential Waste Generation

There are three main factors driving China’s rapid waste production:

• Urbanization
• Population growth
• Increasing affluence

Because of increased economic activity, which includes higher consumption patterns and generally higher incomes, urban residents in China produce two to three times more waste than citizens living in rural areas. Therefore, as cities expand and the country becomes more urbanized, the amount of trash citizens will produce grows too.

In wealthier residential areas, the bulk of waste generated comes from paper (30 percent), organic materials (26 to 27 percent), plastic (18 percent), glass (15 percent) and metal (5 percent). Little to no waste from ash and dirt is generated in these areas, unlike the high volume produced in the lower-income areas, according to the World Bank.

In impoverished, single-story residential areas, the bulk of waste generated comes from organic materials (nearly 50 percent) and ash and dirt (40 percent). Glass (2 percent) and paper and plastic (5 percent each) account for very little of the waste stream. Unlike in the higher-income neighborhoods, little to no metal waste is generated in these lower-income areas.

Le Yang is a 24-year-old graduate student from Chaozhou and Guangzhou in China’s Guangdong Province. Yang says trash is a big problem in his country’s cities.

“I do see trash on the streets,” he says. “They hire cleaning people to get rid of the trash. In some business centers or outdoor shopping plazas, there are cleaning workers in the daytime or the cleaning workers get up early every day, like 4 a.m., to sweep the streets. In some big roads, they use cleaning trucks.”

Dependence on Coal

Currently, many areas of China still use coal to heat homes and to generate electricity. The ash created in these processes has been a major problem, not only for China, but for other nations as well. The World Bank estimates that as much as 50 percent of the mercury falling on North American lakes is from Chinese power plants.

According to the World Bank, about 27.6 million tons of coal ash enter China’s urban waste stream annually. The material is very difficult to dispose of, as it contains heavy metals and is corrosive. Its composition reduces the lifespan and efficiency of incinerators, collection vehicles and waste processing facilities, as well as makes it unsuitable for composting.

The World Bank estimates, however, that by the year 2030, the vast majority of urban households will have made the switch to more modern gas heating and electricity, reducing the amount of coal ash in the waste stream.

Waste Collection and Recycling

By and large, people do not sort their trash at home; recyclables and regular waste are disposed of in the same bins. Also, levels of waste collection services vary across the country. In some areas, waste is collected up to three times per day, but in others, there is no regular collection at all. Overall, collection efficiency is more present in the east side of China than in the west.

“The trash collectors come around to take the trash away,” says Yang. “What the citizens need to do is to place the trash bag at a specific place close to [their] residence building. In the public areas, there are sort-out trash cans, but people don’t always realize it. They still throw all the trash into whatever trash cans.”

“At the college areas, however,” Yang continues, “the situation is much better than other areas, and the streets are very clean because the students take it much more serious than other people do.”

A possible problem with China’s current recycling system could be that the country accepts too many low-cost, secondary materials, such as scraps, from other countries. For example, in 2002, the U.S. exported an estimated $1.2 billion worth of secondary materials to China, according to the World Bank.

Some nations that usually have stricter waste management regulations and therefore higher fees export their waste materials to China in order to save their own landfill space and avoid paying the more expensive disposal costs. This business practice may provide China with cheap materials, but it prevents them from further developing systems in place that would better utilize the country’s own secondary materials.

According the World Bank, paper production in China continues to grow significantly each year and accounts for a majority of the waste in affluent residential areas. As municipal authorities improve their recycling programs, experts agree that paper will need to become a major focal point, as producing the paper from reclaimed materials would be less expensive and better for the environment.

In fact, China’s pulp and paper production from raw materials account for roughly 47 percent of the country’s total chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharges — organic pollutants found in surface water, for example, lakes and rivers. Also, if China were able to achieve a 50 percent recycling rate for all its paper waste by 2030, it would save more than 41 million tons from potentially ending up in landfills, according to the World Bank.

So far China has not been very successful at composting its biodegradable waste, due to the fact waste is not separated at the source and, therefore, much of the organic material has been mixed with non-biodegradable material, negatively affecting the final compost product.

However experts say if China were to improve its composting methods, there would be a number of advantageous effects, including the ability to avoid excessive formation of methane gases (greenhouse gases), reduce carbon emissions and reduce erosion.

Additionally, the compost could be marketed to farmers who can afford it as a soil conditioner for their crops. Good-quality compost can improve moisture retention, seed germination, and growth and disease suppression among plants.

Many citizens collect recyclables for resale in China. Photo: Columbia.edu

Waste Pickers

China’s waste management system has two components: formal and informal. Interestingly enough, there are more individuals who work in the informal sector of waste services than in the formal.

Urban waste collectors are paid by local governments to mainly collect and transport residential waste, but in some cities, these individuals may also sell the recycled materials to supply the municipality with an additional revenue stream.

The informal sector is comprised of low-income individuals, sometimes even children, called waste pickers, who collect recyclable materials to sell to recycling facilities.

Banned from collection bins because they interfere with collection services, these individuals frequently sort through waste in hazardous landfills and other locations.

Waste pickers may be considered a nuisance to landfill and collection site managers, but the World Bank estimates that they reclaim as much as 20 percent of the country’s waste. Also, waste picking does provide informal employment for some.

Industrial Waste Generation

In 2002, Chinese industries were responsible for generating more than 1 billion tons of waste – that’s more than five times the amount of the municipal solid waste that was generated that year. Industrial waste is not included in China’s municipal solid waste stream, however, because corporations are required to treat and dispose of their waste independently.

In some cities, such as Hong Kong, construction and demolition wastes make up the largest percentage of the waste stream. These materials are often used to fill in low-lying areas, however, there is the possible danger of the demolition waste polluting the groundwater.

As China’s population continues to grow rapidly, the nation’s water sources will become more and more valuable, therefore, the country could benefit from creating landfills capable of holding demolition wastes without creating leachate.

Drying Beds

In China, sludge is a common hazardous byproduct of industries, as well as waste treatment facilities. This sludge is frequently treated in “drying beds,” ideally located far from water sources, according to “Wastewater Sludge Processing.”

In drying beds, the sludge is poured over a bed of gravel or sand. The moisture is then allowed to evaporate and be absorbed into the ground. This process is called “dewatering,” and once it’s complete, the sludge will have hardened and can then be treated as a solid.

Drying beds have appealed to China’s municipal authorities because the operating costs are relatively low, they consume very little energy, require few chemicals and can be used for up to 10 years before the harmful residues need to be removed.

However, there are disadvantages to the use of drying beds. They require significant land space and can be highly odorous, making it difficult to place them near a city. And in more rural areas, much of the ground is not very absorbent, having already been saturated with manure from widespread livestock farming.

Disposal alternatives for sludge include incineration, but the process is very expensive. And dumping sludge into landfills is dangerous, as most landfills are not well equipped to prevent the chemicals from leaching into groundwater.

As the amount of sludge created from industrial waste increases, experts say China will have to establish more landfills that are able to receive dewatered sludge, taking into consideration location, design and operation, so that there is minimal risk of contaminating water sources.

Landfills

A massive landfill in Hong Kong is extended in order to accommodate more waste. Photo: Earth-photography.com

Some Chinese cities, such as Shanghai, have made efforts to establish safer landfills, but in most cities the landfills are more or less dumps, where the discarded waste’s environmental impact is poorly regulated.

Problems with landfills include:

• Interference from waste pickers
• Inadequate sloping of the land
• Inadequate collection and treatment of leachate
• Little to no compaction or waste covering
• Little to no collection of landfill gases

However, some municipalities, such as Tianjin, are trying to raise those standards by implementing more up-to-date construction and technology.

In 2007, Tianjin took steps toward establishing the Shuangkou Landfill Gas Project, which will recover landfill gases such as methane and carbon dioxide and convert them into electricity, according to the World Bank Carbon Finance Unit.

As of the end of 2008, Tianjin’s gas project was still in its infant stages of development, but with continued improvements, the potential for reducing emissions, as well as generating power, is huge.

In other cities, the landfills are more or less dumps, where the discarded waste’s environmental impact is poorly regulated. Some sites, called “brownfields,” are lands filled with contaminants from poor disposal practices and chemical spills.

These polluted fields have an ill effect on public health and the environment, as they degrade air quality and water sources. The World Bank reports that in 2005 there were as many as 5,000 brownfields across China.

Experts say the matter of cleaning up brownfields is an urgent one if China is to protect its groundwater in this time of extreme population growth.

Already the water is not very clean or safe to drink. “No one drinks water from the tap [in China] — no one,” says Katrina Josephson, a 24-year-old American from Rhode Island who studied Mandarin for two months in Hangzhou.

Yang explains further, saying, “You can never ever drink tap water directly in China. People get the tap water and boil water in pots, then drink hot water, or wait until it cool down.” He also adds, “All the rivers in cities are polluted, black water, dirty and stinky.”

International Protocol

In 1997, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change introduced the Kyoto Protocol, an environmental treaty holding participating countries accountable for stabilizing their production of major greenhouse gases, including methane and carbon dioxide.

Because it’s considered a developing country, China was never formally bound to comply with the terms set forth in the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, former U.S. President George Bush cited the fact that the treaty didn’t hold China fully responsible for stabilizing its emissions as one of the reasons why the U.S. did not sign the Kyoto Protocol.

In September, however, Shanghai will host the China Solid Waste Management Summit 2009, which will bring together more than 200 waste management professionals from all over the world in order to discuss how to improve China’s current systems and practices.

And just three months later, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, where participating nations hope to establish a treaty that will adequately replace the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012.

Future Progress

According to the World Bank, China’s current waste management data is largely insufficient, making it difficult to create accurate all-inclusive reports, or to even set long-term goals for waste reduction per capita, as well as for the country as a whole.

But experts agree that a few things are certain, regardless of the numbers: If China is to slow its rate of waste generation, it will have to take into consideration a number of factors, including:

• Brownfield cleanup
• Effective composting
• Waste segregation at the source
• Widespread collection services
• Safer landfills that can be used for longer periods of time

Waste management is a major problem in India. Faced with rapid population growth, disorganization of city governments, a lack of public awareness and limited funding for programs, cities have struggled for years to find a way to responsibly manage the country’s ever-increasing amount of trash.

The Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organization (CPHEEO) has estimated that waste generation in India could be as much as 1.3 pounds per person per day. That figure is relatively low, compared to the 4.6 pounds of waste generated per person per day in the U.S. However, as of July 2009, the U.S. population was close to 307 million, whereas India’s population was nearly four times greater, at 1.2 billion.

These statistics mean that India could be generating as much as 27 million more tons of waste than the U.S. per year, although it has only one-third the land space when it comes to finding suitable locations for final disposal.

India’s rapid population growth only magnifies the problem. The urban population has grown at a rate of more than 20 percent each year since 1980 and is projected to reach a rate of more than 30 percent by 2015.

Many argue that the country’s poorly organized waste management scheme will continue to result in serious health problems and irreversible damage to the environment.  Most agree that the government, industry and citizens need to work together to make major improvements.

India is the second-most populated country in the world, making waste management an imperative task. Photo: CIA.gov

A City’s Seven Responsibilities

In India, each municipality is responsible for organizing its own waste management in the following areas:

• Waste segregation and storage at the source
• Primary collection
• Street sweeping
• Secondary waste storage
• Transport of waste
• Treatment and recycling options for solid waste
• Final disposal

Unfortunately, each of these seven stages are frought with difficulties, and city services and citizen cooperation can be, overall, inefficient.

Currently, there is no official system for the widespread collection of recyclables, and the tasks of collecting, transporting and disposing of waste are done under very unsanitary conditions. These problems have been created in part by low budgets and a lack of technology and manpower.

Street Sweeping

In some areas, people are permitted to simply dump their trash on the streets, creating a dangerous mix of rotten food, harmful chemicals and human and animal excreta. This contributes to flooding, breeding of insects and rodents and  spreading of diseases.

“It is definitely a culture shock,” says Velika Lotwala of the urban scene in India. The 28-year-old marketing manager currently lives in Phoenix but frequently travels back to Bombay, where her family is from. “There are cows, dogs and other animals roaming the streets, nobody follows driving guidelines, and the noise and smell are overwhelming,” she says of typical Indian cities.

Door-to-door collection  is virtually non-existent in India. Instead, the official method for primary collection is called “street sweeping.”

In higher trafficked city areas, such as important roads or markets, the municipality employs people to remove the trash with short-handled brooms and handcarts. These street sweepers spend the first half of the day sweeping the trash into piles and then the second half carting the trash to the designated waste bin.

A street sweeper is usually assigned a particular area or distance, which could be as small as one kilometer of road, or as large as 32,000 square feet. Given the fact that the sweepers are tasked with covering an impossible size of ground, it’s easy to see why not all streets are swept every day — some are swept only every other day, a few times a week or very rarely.

Indian rag-pickers collect polythene bags from a large heap of garbage at a land fill to sell at a market in New Delhi. Photo: Daylife.com

Rag Pickers

A second, unofficial method of primary collection is carried out by “rag pickers.” These are usually very poor women and children who will sift through the garbage in the streets, waste bins and even landfills, searching for items that they can resell.

Reusable materials are most often newspaper, glass bottles, tin cans, plastic bags and old clothes or fabric. The rag pickers earn a small living by collecting these materials and then selling them to waste buyers who will further sort and clean the trash before reselling it in bulk to a manufacturer with the means to recycle it.

In the process of rummaging through the city’s trash, rag pickers often overturn waste bins and spread garbage into the streets, furthering unsanitary conditions. Also, rag pickers come in contact with all kinds of dangerous waste on a daily basis, including biomedical, human and animal waste.

Secondary Waste Storage

Community waste bins are meant to hold waste in bulk until it can be transported to landfills. However, they are unevenly distributed, and there are too few of them per number of households. It’s common for individuals to have to carry their trash long distances in order to reach the closest dumpster.

Cities don’t regularly empty the containers, either, although residents and street sweepers quickly fill them to capacity. The bins have no lids, leading to trash overflow and creating highly unsanitary conditions in neighborhoods.

Transportation

When sanitation workers transport waste from the bins out of residential areas, they use open trucks or tractors, which they load manually, often without wearing protective gear. Trash often falls out of these trucks during transport, making the process that much more time-consuming, inefficient and unhygienic.

The vast majority of cities have little funding available for waste management and therefore can’t afford as many sanitation workers as are needed to sweep the streets and collect and transport waste from community dumpsters.

Treatment and Final Disposal

Ideally, trash that makes it to the final disposal stage should be responsibly incinerated or undergo mechanical-biological treatment before being sent to a landfill. But in India, 94 percent of waste is disposed of unsafely, either burned in an uncontrolled manner, or dumped in untreated landfills, where contaminants can leach into groundwater.

In the capital of New Delhi, workers are paid to sweep major streets and outlets. Photo: Destination360.com

Given the size of India’s population and the size of the country itself, finding enough land that meets the state pollution board criteria and can hold 20 to 30 years worth of waste is extremely difficult. And even if suitable land can be found, sometimes the purchase price is higher than the city can afford.

“India is so over-populated that many people make their homes in landfills and set up shanties using other people’s trash. It’s very sad,” says Lotwala. “One minute, you could be driving in front of a huge high-rise building … and the next you could be driving in front of a landfill turned [into] shanties for homeless people.”

Waste Management Legislation

State and city legislation include some directives for the collection, transport and disposal of waste, but the wording lacks specifics. The laws require each city’s chief executive to see to it that streets are swept, trash bins are provided and waste is transported to dumping sites, but the laws do not say exactly how these tasks should be carried out.

The majority of city legislation also does not:

• Clearly prohibit citizens from littering
• Outline any widespread collection schemes
• Specify types of waste bins for storage
• Require sanitation workers to use covered transportation
• Require treatment of waste and landfills

Without laws to govern accountability, India’s waste management system remains outdated.

In 1996, a public interest litigation was filed in the Supreme Court (Special Civil Application No. 888 of 1996) against the government of India, state governments and municipal authorities, claiming they were failing to fulfill their waste management duties in an acceptable manner.

A committee was appointed by the court to investigate. After speaking with city authorities, sanitation workers and citizens, the committee delivered to the Supreme Court a report with detailed recommendations. As a result, the Supreme Court advised India’s states and city officials to take the necessary steps to resolve these issues.

In line with these events, in 2000, India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests issued the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2000, guidelines for all Indian cities and states to follow in order to make improvements.

Municipal Solid Waste Rules 2000

The four steps of the MSW Rules 2000 are:

1. Set up waste processing and disposal facilities.
2. Monitor the performance of processing and disposal once every six months.
3. Improve existing landfill sites.
4. Identify landfill sites for future use and make the sites ready.

The Rules 2000 put forth more strict requirements for collection, transport and disposal of waste. For example, different types of waste should not be combined and must be collected separately. Also, city officials must ask their state’s pollution control board for authorization to set up waste bins and processing facilities, and these officials must also deliver annual progress reports to the board.

Indian cities were given until December 2003 to incorporate these rules into their current systems. The deadlines have all since passed, with very few local governments being able to comply with all four of the mandates. The Supreme Court committee cited reasons for non-compliance to be a lack of community involvement and insufficient technology and financial resources.

Sanitation workers transport waste using open trucks or tractors, which they load manually, often without wearing protective gear. Photo: Delhigreens.com

Funding for Waste Management

City funds for waste management services come from a number of sources. What little income is available for providing waste services comes mostly from the taxes and fees associated with the operating costs of running water, drainage and sanitation. Some states also offer grants to their cities, but these are often insubstantial.

According to the Supreme Court report, most cities spend 70 to 75 percent of their waste management budget on street sweeping, 25 to 30 percent on collection processes and 0 to 5 percent on disposal.

The fact that so little money is invested in the treatment and disposal of waste signals a very “here and now” mindset in India with regard to controlling the waste situation, rather than a focus on the country’s future.

Future Progress

According to a 2008 report by The World Bank, if an efficient system were in place, roughly 15 percent of India’s waste materials such as paper, plastic, metal and glass could be recovered and recycled. If the 35 to 55 percent that is organic waste could also be recovered, that would leave only 30 to 50 percent to be sent to landfills.

Part of India’s improvements for waste sanitation will need to include better outreach to its citizens regarding the benefits of clean waste practices and caring for the environment. Also, experts have suggested that assigning some responsibilities to the private sector could provide advantages such as salaries based on job performance, access to better technology, job creation and more effective administration.

But as countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany have already proven, a major key to reducing waste is limitation at the source of creation. Perhaps by creating more programs and initiatives to better encourage citizens, manufacturers and communities to be less wasteful, the country of India will find it easier to continue taking steps toward a cleaner, safer environment.

One of the easiest steps to take toward more eco-conscious living is greening up those tasks you do every single day, such as your hygiene habits.

By incorporating these eight simple tips into your everyday health practices, not only will you be squeaky clean, but you’ll also have a consistently clean conscience when it comes to the environment, too.

Avoid using soaps or creams that contain harmful ingredients as this could contaminate the water supply. Photo: Popsci.com

1. Choose Greener Hygiene Products

It’s time to start reading the backs of your bottles. Some personal hygiene and beauty products contain harmful substances known to be skin irritants, poisons and even carcinogens. Choosing natural-ingredient products over those highly processed ones has many benefits.

First, the toxins will no longer be coming in contact with your body each day, and you’ll also be avoiding companies that produce excessive greenhouse gas emissions during manufacturing.

So, which ingredients should you avoid and what products might contain them? In partnership with the Environmental Working Group, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has created Skin Deep, a searchable online database of cosmetics and personal care products where you can check your sunscreen, shampoo, deodorant, shaving cream and more for toxic ingredients.

2. Opt for Energy-Efficient Appliances

Being aware of how much electricity you use during your daily hygiene routine could help you make some cutbacks. Think about this the next time you’re in the market for a new electric razor, curling iron or hair roller set.

Most modern hair dryers use between 1,700 and 2,000 watts of electricity. If you use a hair dryer on a daily basis, switching to one with a lower wattage would not only use less power but ultimately save you a little cash on your electricity bill each month – making those additional five minutes in the morning worth it.

3. Conserve Water

You may not realize how much water you’re losing from that leaky sink faucet or shower head in the bathroom. Fixing leaks like this as soon as possible is important – a single faucet dripping once every second could waste more than 2,000 gallons of water over the course of a year. Or, why not go one step further by installing high-efficiency faucets and toilets?

Compared to their standard counterparts, high-efficiency bathroom sink faucets use 30 percent less water. Also, WaterSense-labeled toilets use 20 percent less water, and high-efficiency shower heads save 2.5 gallons per minute.

More things you can do to save water and power:

• Take shorter showers
• Take colder showers
• Turn the water off while brushing your teeth and shampooing your hair

Using products that you make in the home are a great (and cheap) alternative to purchasing standard cleaning agents that contain harsh chemicals. Photo: Squeegeeclean.net

4. Find Green Cleaning Alternatives

The next time you have to wipe down the bathroom counter and clean the mirror above the sink, opt for products with fewer chemicals.

Standard cleaning products can irritate allergies, cause headaches and make your eyes burn, so getting rid of them will not only  improve your home’s air quality, but it could also improve your quality of life.

Standard cleaning products can not only be toxic to your skin and lungs, but they’re also considered hazardous when it comes to disposal.

The next time you need to throw out a half-empty bottle of traditional cleaning fluid, take it to a hazardous waste recycling center instead of tossing it in the trash.

5. Recycle Product Packaging

Sometimes we forget about the recycling that’s outside of our kitchen wastebasket, but don’t forget about the bathroom too! Much of the packaging for hygiene products can be recycled.

Try keeping small, separate waste baskets just for paper or cardboard and plastic in the bathroom to make the task of sorting easier. Also, the next time you go shopping for personal hygiene products, keep an eye out for items packaged in recycled or recyclable materials.

The production of packaging materials accounts for roughly 3 percent of the U.S.’s energy consumption, but it takes less energy to produce packaging from recycled materials than it does to begin processing the materials in their natural state.

6. Use Non-Toxic Towels and Shower Curtains

Green your bathroom by outfitting it with non-toxic towels and bath mats, as well as an eco-friendly shower curtain.

Towels made from 100-percent organic cotton are free of herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, formaldehyde and other synthetic materials, and over time they won’t emit toxic fumes. Best yet, organic cotton towels are highly absorbent and breathe and wear well.

Consider getting a high-quality, 100-percent organic cotton or organic hemp shower curtain as a durable and mildew-resistant alternative to a standard toxic PVC or vinyl shower curtain. A curtain or liner made from responsibly-harvested bamboo would be even better, as bamboo wicks away moisture and is known to be more anti-microbial than cotton.

These types of shower curtains are great because they can be thrown in the washer and dryer along with your eco-friendly towels, guaranteeing water stains and mildew will never be a problem again.

Think about how much toilet papers and tissue you use annually. That adds up! Brands such as Seventh Generation offer products made from recycled content. Photo: Trilogyarch.com

7. Purchase Recycled Toilet Paper and Facial Tissues

They may be after-thoughts when it comes to determining how to green your hygiene routine, but don’t underestimate the impact of single-use items such as toilet paper and facial tissues.

According to Greenpeace’s “Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide,” American families could save more than 400,000 trees by replacing just one roll of their standard toilet paper with a roll of recycled-content toilet paper.

Switching to recycled, unscented toilet paper and facial tissues will also mean switching to products free of chemical fragrances and lotions, but if you find your nose gets dry, use the Skin Deep database to find a safe face lotion.

8. Ladies: Switch to Chemical-Free Feminine Hygiene Products

Eco-conscious women might be alarmed to discover that the vast majority of feminine hygiene products on the market contain chlorine-bleached cottons and harmful substances called dioxins, which the EPA has declared to likely be carcinogens. Artificial fragrances in these products can contain more unsafe chemicals, including phthalates, also considered by the EPA to be toxic.

But the problems with standard feminine hygiene products don’t stop there. Many applicators and adhesives are non-biodegradable. Purchase feminine hygiene products through a company like Seventh Generation, whose products are not only free of bleach and phthalates, but also come in paper or cardboard packaging.

Germany leads the European nations in recycling, with around 70 percent of the waste the country generates successfully recovered and reused each year. To put that figure into perspective, consider this: In 2007, the U.S. was able to recover only about 33 percent of the waste generated that year.

To operate such a successful waste management system nationwide is certainly no small feat, but for the past several years the Germans have made it look easy. So how do they do it?

“Recycling is very important in Germany,” says Günseli Aksoy, a 24-year-old mechanical engineering student at the Braunschweig University of Technology. “The people here are very conscientious.”

Germany's recycling rate is one of the highest in the world - an respectable 70 percent. Photo: Faa.gov

And while the country’s conscientious waste management strategy requires cooperation from the government, the industry and the citizens, it starts at the very beginning of the waste creation process – with the product manufacturers.

There are three simple components the manufacturers must consider: waste avoidance, waste recovery and environmentally compatible disposal.

By incorporating waste avoidance into industry, much of Germany’s waste management becomes “invisible,” as corporations are forced to re-think every aspect of manufacturing. Packaging, processes and disposal of items are all engineered with recycling and elimination of waste in mind.

Federal Waste Management Policy

In 1996, German lawmakers who were concerned about the country’s growing number of landfills passed the Closed Substance Cycle and Waste Management Act, which requires businesses to eliminate waste production by implementing one or more of the three management strategies.

Waste avoidance is first priority because it encourages companies to design their manufacturing processes and packaging with elimination of wastefulness in mind. Second, waste that can’t be avoided must be recycled or converted into energy. Lastly, waste that can’t be recovered must be disposed of in a way that is environmentally safe.

The concept in which private industries are responsible for eliminating waste – and for covering the costs – is described as the “polluter pays” principle. In other words, those who create the waste are responsible for cleaning up the mess. The U.S. has a “consumer pays” policy, in which waste management is funded by taxpaying citizens.

Germany’s three-point strategy doesn’t apply to just the country’s solid and packaging wastes, but also to liquid, gaseous, hazardous, radioactive and medical wastes. The efforts have been hugely successful; according to the German Federal Statistical Office, between the years 1996 and 2007, the country has reduced its total net waste amount by more than 37.7 million U.S. tons.

Packaging Ordinance

Even before Germany’s Closed Substance Cycle and Waste Management Act formed the country’s national waste management policy, legislators knew they needed to make big changes. Something had to be done to reduce the amount of solid waste the country was generating each year.

In 1991, Germany adopted its Packaging Ordinance, which requires all manufacturers to collect and then recycle or reuse their packaging after it is disposed of by consumers.

Making corporations responsible for their packaging to the end of its life cycle encourages them to package goods with fewer materials in order to minimize recycling and disposal costs.

The Ordinance focuses on improving three categories of packaging:

• Transport packaging (crates and shipping boxes)
• Secondary packaging (non-essential boxes, such as around bottles of vitamins)
• Primary packaging (casings that come in contact with the product, such as toothpaste tubes)
  

  The Green Dot trademark ensures the responsibility of manufacturers' recycling and waste reduction practices. Photo: Lotex24.de

The Dual System and The Green Dot Trademark

Many companies had a difficult time complying with all the new standards and recycling laws introduced by the Packaging Ordinance.

They decided that they needed to better organize themselves, and so the non-profit organization Duales System Deutschland GmbH (Dual System Germany, or DSD) was created.

Manufacturers pay a fee to become a member of the DSD and are then permitted to print Der Grüne Punkt (the Green Dot) trademark on all their packaging.

Fees are decided based on the material, the weight and the number of items. The DSD also takes into consideration what it will cost to collect, sort, treat and recycle the different materials.

Recycling companies guarantee to accept any and all materials displaying the Green Dot, because the trademark is a symbol that the product’s manufacturer has paid to become a DSD member and promises to comply with Germany’s recycling laws.

Currently, the Green Dot system is used by more than 130,000 companies in 25 European countries (20 EU members and four candidate countries – Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, as well as Norway). PRO Europe, the umbrella organization for European packaging waste management systems, reports that 3.2 million tons (U.S. tons) of Germany’s commercial packaging waste was recovered in 2007. That’s more than 88 percent of all the packaging produced in Germany that year!

But wait, there’s more. DSD reports that the country’s recycling efforts in 2008 not only kept waste out of landfills, but it also avoided an estimated 1.4 million tons of CO2 emissions.

According to a municipal solid waste report by the EPA, in 2007, the U.S. was able to recover only about 43 percent of all the containers and packaging produced that year.

Citizen Responsibility

DSD has made recycling widely available and very convenient for German citizens. Trash bins can be found on street corners, in public parks and other spaces, in the courtyards of apartment buildings, and in all single family homes. These trash containers are usually color-coded and labeled according to what should be placed in them:

Germany distributes bins of different colors for every material. While Germans have to separate their recycling, the system is still very successful. Photo: Makingthishome.com

• Yellow bin – packaging
• Blue bin – paper and cardboard
• White bin – white or clear glass
• Brown bin – brown glass
• Green bin – green glass
• “Bio” bin – leftover food and plant waste

A neighborhood will also likely have receptacles for collecting discarded shoes, clothing items and scrap metal. There are also black bins for any rubbish that doesn’t fit into one of the other categories.

Legally, Germans are not obliged to sort their household waste, but clearly the vast majority of them don’t mind doing it. In fact, many citizens feel so strongly about sorting their trash that they will often help or politely correct foreigners or any others they see who are “doing it wrong.”

“[Recycling] becomes a way of life here, and if people in the [United States] just started doing it, after a while it becomes routine and you don’t even realize you’re doing it,” says Kormany Hochnedel, a 23-year-old American living in Germany. “It’s the same as simply throwing something away. It’s such a simple thing that makes such a huge difference.”

“Special rubbish,” paint and other chemicals, can be taken to local recycling centers. Or sometimes, stores that sell those products will have trash bins outside their doors. For example, an electronics store will have a bin for discarded batteries.

Germans know that when they shop at grocers and many other stores, they are expected to bring their own reusable shopping bag. Some stores do have plastic bags, but they must be purchased by the consumer.

“Nobody even considers using plastic bags when going to the store [in Germany],” says Hochnedel. “You bring your own, or you carry your stuff out in a cart or in your arms. You really see what a difference little things like that can make – there is never garbage on the streets. It’s so clean.”

Also, people can return certain bottles and other containers to the grocery or liquor store where they were purchased. For doing this, customers receive either a discount off their next purchase, or they get back a small deposit, usually around 15 cents per bottle. This provides citizens with a small monetary incentive to recycle, and it also helps companies meet their recycling quotas.

“It doesn’t matter whether [the bottles] are made from plastic or from glass – a person has to pay a deposit, so at the end he’s going to give the bottles back,” Aksoy says.

Germany is working on becoming a zero-waste country by 2020. Photo: Destination360.com

Post-Collection Process

So, after all the careful sorting, where does the trash go? The DSD has a plan for that part of waste management, too.

The DSD works with cities and towns to coordinate collection sites and systems around the country. Many local governments hire private contractors to handle their waste management, but these operations are still funded by the Green Dot fees paid by industry members.

After the trash is collected, what it is determines which path it takes. Most items will be transferred directly to a sorting plant, where the recyclable parts are separated from the non-recyclable parts. Materials that go to sorting plants include paper and cardboard, packaging, textiles and shoes, bulky waste, hazardous waste, scrap metal, electronics and batteries.

From a sorting plant, material can travel in many different directions. Paper goes to a paper mill, glass goes to a processing plant and then to a glassworks facility, and clothing goes to second-hand distributors. The majority of items materials will go to either a recycling facility, treatment facility, or both.

Anything that can’t be recycled is responsibly incinerated or undergoes mechanical-biological treatment before being put into a landfill. In the 1970s, Germany had around 50,000 landfills, but now there are fewer than 200, thanks to stricter regulations and a diminished need.

According to the European Environment Agency, in 2006, Germany landfilled only about one percent of the country’s untreated waste. In 2007, the EPA reports that the U.S.  sent 54 percent of its waste to more than 1,700 landfills.

Future Progress

Germany certainly has no plans to fall out of the No. 1 position in the recycling race. With its recycling rate already around 70 percent, the nation is ready to conquer the final frontier in sustainability.

By the year 2020, Germany hopes to find a way to reuse every last scrap of every item produced. Achieving this zero waste goal would make the country 100 percent sustainable and eliminate the need for landfills completely.

It’s no question that Germany has some serious work to do in order to meet its goal, but with the excellent ability to organize its industry members and citizens, as well as engineer highly innovative and efficient manufacturing and recycling processes, the nation continues to prove itself as one of the most forward-thinking and environmentally conscious countries in the world.

If you aren’t quite ready to make any drastic changes but still want to lower your impact on the environment, there are several steps that, once taken, you’ll hardly have to think about twice. Here are eight tiny changes you can make to tip toe your way into a greener lifestyle.

1. Park It

When running errands, opt to park your car and go inside instead of using the drive-thru. The EPA estimates that for every minute the average car engine idles, it emits 6 to 7 grams of pollutants into the atmosphere.

That means that if one million drivers turned off their cars, rather than idled unnecessarily, for just two minutes per week for an entire year, these harmful emissions would be reduced by more than 750 tons. And don’t forget that for every two minutes your car idles, it uses roughly the same amount of fuel you’d use to travel one mile. What a waste of gas!

By replacing just one meal a week with a vegetarian option, you can save on carbon emissions. Photo: 8coupons.com

2. Eat Your Veggies

If you’re part of the meat-eating percentage of the population, consider going meatless for just one meal a week. It’s been estimated that 18 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with meat consumption, including raising the livestock and processing, packaging and shipping the products.

The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that if every American substituted a vegetarian dish for a meat dish for just one meal per week, the carbon dioxide reduction would be roughly equivalent to taking more than one-half million cars off the roads.

3. Go Electronic

One of the easiest ways to reduce your household’s paper consumption is by paying your bills online and receiving statements via e-mail. Taking advantage of paperless programs at your bank or utility company means you’ll save money on stamps, eliminate paper waste and always have easy access to your account information and payment history.

4. Power Down

The fossil fuels burned to provide a single home with electricity put more carbon dioxide into the air than two average cars. Use less energy by turning off lights and unplugging appliances when you don’t need them.

Even a cell phone charger continues to use energy when plugged in, whether your cell phone is charging or not. If you use a power strip, you can turn off several appliances with the flip of just one switch. Bonus points: Each time you wear out an appliance, replace it with a more energy-efficient model.

5. Check Your Temperature

Sometimes a small change in temperature can have big results. Try keeping your thermostat one to two degrees warmer in the summer and one to two degrees cooler in the winter. This will lower your electricity bill and save a wealth of energy over the course of the year.

Also, adjust your refrigerator thermostat to save additional energy. Storing food at the recommended temperatures – 37 to 40 degrees F for the fresh food compartment and 5 degrees F for the frozen food compartment – will guarantee your refrigerator doesn’t work harder than it has to and make it last even longer.

In nice weather, open windows instead of using lamps and air conditioning. Photo: Bestgreenhometips.com

6. See the Light

In good weather, you can use natural light to your advantage by opening windows and drawing back curtains, rather than lighting your house 24/7 with lamps and ceiling lights. In hot weather, use heavy curtains or shades to block out the heat and prevent your AC from working overtime.

For those times you do need artificial light, consider using compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. CFLs use 50 to 80 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs and can last up to 10 times longer. Just as with rechargeable batteries, CFLs cost more upfront, but a single bulb could save you $40 to $50 in its lifetime.

7. Clean Conservatively

By taking shorter and fewer showers you can save thousands of gallons of water each year. An ordinary shower head flows 5 gallons of water per minute, so if you take a five-minute shower instead of a 10-minute one you’ll save 25 gallons of water. Other ways to save water include running full loads through your dishwasher and laundry washing machine. Bonus points: Use cold water and cold-water detergents to save energy, and use a dryer rack instead of the mechanical dryer once a week.

8. Get Charged

Another simple way to eliminate waste and save money is to make the switch to rechargeable batteries. Even though their initial cost is higher, rechargeable batteries can be recharged hundred of times before they go bad, meaning they could last for years longer than the disposable kind and save you significant cash in the long run. Remember to responsibly recycle dead batteries, both rechargeable and disposable.

What we do with our leftover paint determines if it goes on to have a second life. In fact, the EPA estimates that Americans discard as much as 69 million gallons of paint each year. That’s millions of gallons of unrecycled paint headed straight for the nation’s landfills. Fortunately, many cities and communities organize household hazardous waste management programs through which residents can recycle leftover paint and paint cans.

Americans discard as much as 69 million gallons of paint each year. Photo: Ecoactionteams.ca

How Paint is Recycled

Most latex paint that doesn’t contain mercury or foreign contaminants can be processed into recycled-content paint.

There are two types of recycled paint: re-blended (also called consolidated paint) and re-processed (also called re-manufactured paint). Re-blended paint contains a much higher percentage of recycled paint than re-processed paint.

Creating re-blended paint involves mixing several paints together, including various colors and sheens (glossy, eggshell, etc.). The paint is then filtered, packaged and distributed or sold.

Re-processed paint results from mixing old paint with new paint and other new materials. The paint is then tested for quality, packaged and distributed or sold. Theresa Foster, the environmental programs coordinator for the City of Phoenix, Ariz., explains the paint recycling process.

“When we [the City’s recycling centers] accept the paint, we separate it out by color, so then it will get mixed that way,” Foster says.

This means re-processed paint can be made into more colors than re-blended paint, which is usually offered in just neutral colors. By repurposing paint in this way, we reduce the demands on the planet’s natural resources, as well as create markets for leftover paint in cities where people would like to purchase and use recycled paint. However, oil-based paints are a trickier business, since they cannot be recycled.

“Oil-based paints are incinerated,” says Foster. “Spray paints, too. Even the metal [containers] get incinerated.”

Try to use any leftover paint you have or donate it to a local charity. Photo: UWM.edu

So What Should I Do With My Paint?

When purchasing paint for a project, try to determine how much paint you will need so that you end up with as little excess paint as possible. Then, make every effort to use leftover paint. Give it to a friend or use it for an art or crafts project. Consider donating the paint to local organizations, such as charities, churches, high school drama departments or Girl Scouts of America or Boy Scouts of America troops.

To recycle your paint, separate it into two groups: latex paint and oil-based paint. Never mix the two kinds together because they have to be recycled separately. Also, if possible, the paints should be in their original containers, or at least clearly labeled for identification.

For latex paint, remove the lid from the can and allow the paint to dry out and harden completely. Push a screw driver into the paint to test whether any of it is still liquid. Once the paint has dried completely, it is ready to be recycled.

In some states, leftover paint that is prepared this way and placed in garbage bins is automatically recycled. In other states, it’s necessary for you to take the paint and containers to a recycling facility. Contact your local household hazardous waste (HHW) representative to learn the regulations in your state.

Oil-based paints are hazardous and should always be taken to your local HHW collection center so they can be disposed of safely. And even though the majority of latex paints are not considered to be hazardous, there are a few exceptions.

“Some paints have chemicals with mildew protection, and those are hazardous because they include pesticides,” says Foster.

Paints labeled as “wood preservative” and paints containing mercury (may apply to any paint manufactured before 1991) are also hazardous. Foster recommends taking latex paints that fall into this category to your local HHW collection center along with your oil-based paints.

Some communities have specific paint recycling programs that will accept both latex and oil-based paints at collection sites. To find your local paint recycling program, use Earth911’s recycling search or check with your city’s public works department.