Christian Manrique’s new post

This is the second part of an article published in April at bez.es originally in Spanish with the headline Drowning in Garbage. Christian Manrique points out the different trends economies and Governments must follow in order to achieve the Waste Zero policy.

Megatrends

As Christian Manrique brought out, in order to being able to understand the consequences of the problem and its reality, there is a series of factors that must be confronted in short and medium term like the following, as the World Bank:

• World population growth has a 2% annual rate. By 2025 it will rise to 8 billion. By 2050 it will overpass 9 billion and by 2100 it will increase up to 11 billion.
• Currently more than 3.5 million waste tones are produced daily. By 2025, World Bank points out that the amount will rise daily to six million tones and by 2100 will overpass 11 million daily tones.
• 66% of this population growth will take place in Western world cities, agglutinating a population of 6 billion people.
• More than 30% of world population in developed areas will be 60 or over that age.
• By 2050 50% of world population will belong to middle class, closer to a collaborative economy context instead of competitive economy and will have to deal with economic, social and environmental effects, these last ones, due to climate change.
• By 2050 resources consumed will achieve 140 billion tones, triple than currently.
• The new industrial revolution, that has brought an unstoppable technological advance, will produce a deep balance, bringing up a new global order.
• The new central axis of economies and Governments will gravitate around water, energy and waste and will become a great world challenge.

Christian Manrique pointed out that before these factors, the most advanced economies and international organizations are adopting programs and goals to find emergency solutions to manage the needs and the consequences of environmental degradation, which will affect social and economic areas due to overpopulation.

UN is advocating for zero waste, recycling and reutilization. OECD supports circular economy and zero waste. EU implemented the Green Growth Strategy based upon R&D, and foreseeing that by 2020 its members shall recycle 50% of their waste and 35% of it should go to landfills. By 2030 the rates should be 65% recycling and 10% landfills.

The Paris Agreement endeavours to limit global warmth under 2 Celsius degrees. Some economies, like the USA, is already implementing Zero Waste programs in cities like New York and San Francisco.