Title : Climate justice and waste equity: Addressing the disproportionate impact of poor waste management on vulnerable communities
Abstract:
The global waste problem and the environmental mess we are in today are closely connected. The issues related to environmental injustice are a result of where and how we dispose of waste, with marginalised and vulnerable communities being severely hit around the globe. With increasing population and changing disposable consumption patterns, it is troubling news for poor and indigenous communities living in proximity to landfills, incinerators and industrial waste sites that they are facing an increasing disaster. These communities are greatly exposed to health risks, including increased incidence of respiratory illness, cancers and impaired development, all due to extended exposure to toxic substances, leachate, and particles found in the atmosphere.
Environmental discrimination further perpetuates the cycle of poverty, making life more difficult and stomping on people’s basic human rights.
Hence, achieving an exhaustion of the system without fair waste treatment is not possible. It is therefore important that we grow beyond simply pointing out the problem to fighting for real climate justice-based solutions. This can be done through policy frameworks that give priority to community input and environmental impact assessments, prioritise investments in zero-waste systems, and promote and help to establish a closed-loop economy in the affected areas that includes the voice of the community in the decision-making process.
Finally, the key to addressing these problems lies in the requirement that a fundamental reconsideration of waste as not just an end-of-pipe issue to be outsourced, but as a sign of the non- sustainability of production and consumption be achieved.
