Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 2: Rubbish FiguresThese figures are highly dubious. Emissions from Sasol Synfuels alone are more thandouble the ‘waste in air’ figure. 13 But the point here is that subsequent representationsimply that the totals are for disposable solid and liquid wastes, not for total wastes toair, water and land. Again, it is not merely that the figures are questionable, but thatthey are not understood.In one sense, CSIR 1992 attempted to create an official language of waste: a commonset of terms and assumptions so that officials, consultants and waste managers wouldall know what they were talking about even if the figures were disputed. The DWAF’sminimum requirements extended this language to corporate and local governmentwaste managers. In principle, managers should know how to classify their wastesand what forms of treatment or disposal are required by regulation. For any nationalaccounting or management of waste, however, the language has broken down. Thefigures are now meaningless and, at a certain level, the state does not know what it’stalking about.The figures nevertheless reinforce the illusion created in the phrase ‘waste management’.The first national State of the Environment Report in 1999 estimated that only 5% ofhazardous waste “was disposed of at permitted hazardous waste disposal sites” [DEAT2008]. Of course, this estimate is as doubtful as anything else said about waste. It isnevertheless apparent that South Africa produces a very large and growing quantity ofhazardous waste and very little is coherently managed.General wasteGeneral waste presents as deep a mystery – as is indicated by the wide spread of figuresin Table 1 from 8 to 20 mt/y. It includes all waste from households, shops and offices– known as ‘domestic and trade waste’ – which, if collected, is headed for municipaldumps. While it is regarded as non-hazardous, it in fact contains many hazardoussubstances such as old batteries, paint and solvents. ‘De-listed’ hazardous waste canalso be dumped at general waste sites. ‘De-listing’ is the bureaucratic re-classificationof hazardous waste which is supposed to follow from treating it or diluting it to theextent that the risk is deemed acceptable. In practice, it is suspected that much wasteis de-listed without being treated simply to allow it to be dumped. Because these toxicelements are mixed in and decompose with other wastes, much of the waste body endsup being more or less toxic.13 This excludes carbon dioxide emissions which were not counted in CSIR 1992.Wasting the Nation - groundWork - 27 -