Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
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Chapter 5: Modernising municipal wastewas discovered to threaten <strong>the</strong> health of residents. In 1986, <strong>the</strong> Khian Sea wandered<strong>the</strong> seas for two years looking for a dumping spot for 15,000 tons of toxic municipalincinerator ash, which it eventually found on a beach in Haiti. In 1987, <strong>the</strong> Islipgarbage barge roamed <strong>the</strong> Atlantic coastline for months looking for somewhere todump its 3,100 tons of garbage. It all made excellent television material, remarks Szasz[1994].In 1989, <strong>the</strong> US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formulated <strong>the</strong> approach of‘integrated waste management’ which it said would ensure <strong>the</strong> ‘proper’ management ofmunicipal waste – its storage, collection, segregation, transport, processing, treatment,disposal, recordkeeping and so on – while also embracing “waste reduction, reuse,resource recovery, biological processing, and incineration in addition to conventionalland disposal” [Pichtel 2005: 4]. In short, it created a new language of wastemanagement, giving a (false) reassurance that it is managed in such a way that wastedoes not become pollution. It thus gave substance to ecological modernisation in <strong>the</strong>domain of waste and replicated its basic intention: it saved consumption capital bymanaging environmental concerns.Creating waste bodiesThe modern sanitary landfills and incinerators are <strong>the</strong> emblems and endpoints ofintegrated waste management.The sanitary landfill developed from older dumps which relied on <strong>the</strong> two principlesof “attenuation and dispersion”. Attenuation is <strong>the</strong> idea that mixed waste decomposesand becomes less dangerous over time. Dispersion is <strong>the</strong> idea that pollution, althoughfreely released, is diluted as it spreads into <strong>the</strong> environment [Williams, 1998: 2006].Both processes can work <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r way round, however, with toxicity increasingover time and <strong>the</strong> potential for biological uptake increasing through <strong>the</strong> chemicaltransformations of pollutants in <strong>the</strong> environment. Older landfills were often startedin quarry holes or simply exploited <strong>the</strong> shape of <strong>the</strong> landscape. Often ‘filling <strong>the</strong>land’ meant ‘reclaiming’ wetlands or o<strong>the</strong>r areas without market value, and <strong>the</strong>reforeregarded as waste lands, for economic use.Modern ‘sanitary landfills’ are huge, carefully sculpted waste bodies wrapped in plasticliners to isolate <strong>the</strong>m from <strong>the</strong> environment and so prevent pollution of groundwater,soil, air, and neighbouring communities. Many are in fact not that well wrapped.- 130 - groundWork - <strong>Wasting</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Nation</strong>