Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 3: The politics of wasteFor law makers, the volatility and vagaries of the market pose the problem of unintendedconsequences: on the one hand, re-use may be penalised if something is defined aswaste while, on the other, the claim that something is re-usable may be used to evaderegulation. The Bill broadly adopts the market definition but with some qualifications:the minister may declare something to be waste, and recyclables are waste until theyare recycled.The Waste HierarchyThe Bill invokes the waste hierarchy in the preamble and the objectives but in factinverts it. This is signalled by the ‘mays’ and ‘musts’. Thus, the minister ‘must’ setnorms and standards for waste storage, treatment and disposal but ‘may’ set them forminimisation, re-use, recycling and recovery of waste. This sets the pattern for thedocument as a whole and it is notable that minimisation tends to disappear when theBill addresses municipal waste management.Zero waste, advocated by civil society, is the most comprehensive approach to wasteavoidance. DEAT evidently regards it as unrealistic. In fact, it anticipates a growing floodof waste with avoidance, minimisation and recycling mitigating the rate of increase.This view accepts the production system as it is and, indeed, a transition to zero wastewould require government as a whole to commit to economic transformation. Asremarked earlier, avoidance and minimisation are located primarily in the productionsystem where DEAT and waste managers have little purchase. As DEAT official JoanneYawich told the parliamentary portfolio committee, “The bottom line [is] that SouthAfrica [is] a country in need of economic growth and development. DEAT [is] thustrying to manage the negative effects of dealing with waste.” 53Practical regulations which the minister ‘may’ introduce include the declaration ofpriority wastes and extended producer responsibility. The minister may also requireparticular persons to reduce, re-use, recycle or recover product components and/or toinclude a percentage of recycled material in products. In all cases, the minister mustconsult with Trade and Industry. If government as a whole were serious about it, thisis indeed where waste prevention and minimisation should belong. However, DTI’sindustrial strategy barely mentions the environment while the trade side generally seesenvironmental regulation as a barrier to trade.53 Parliamentary Monitoring Group, Meeting report on discussion on incineration March 4, 2008, at http://www.pmg.org.zaWasting the Nation - groundWork - 73 -