The planet is literally drowning in garbage, and it is high time to clean up, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday, at an event in the General Assembly Hall marking the first-ever International Day of Zero Waste.
The high-level meeting was held to raise awareness of the urgent need to transition to a “green” and circular economy that promotes sustainable production and consumption patterns. The move could save governments billions and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Humanity currently generates more than two billion tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, which includes plastics, textiles, rotting food, discarded electronics, and debris from mining and construction sites.
As the Secretary-General bluntly put it, we are basically “treating our planet like a garbage dump”, warning that the messy mountain will reach four billion tonnes by 2050.
“We are trashing our only home,” he said. “We’re spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health.”
Mr. Guterres said it was time for “a war on waste” on three fronts, calling on polluters themselves to take the lead.
“Those who produce waste must design products and services that are less resource and material intensive, smartly manage any waste created across all stages of their products’ lifecycle, and find creative ways to extend the lives of the products they sell, he said.
These companies will also need to invest in waste management, recovery and recycling systems in communities where they operate, he added.
The UN chief urged countries, cities and local governments to develop and scale-up modern waste management systems, as well as policies that encourage re-using and recycling plastic bottles, ageing electronics and other items.
His final point focused on the need for consumers to be more responsible.
“All of us need to consider the origins and impacts of the goods and products we buy every day and rethink how we dispose of them,” he said.
“We need to find opportunities to reuse, recycle, repurpose, repair and recover the products we use. And we need to think twice before throwing these items in the garbage.”
The head of the UN’s urban development agency, UN-Habitat, Maimunah Mohd Sharif, urged countries to be “waste wise”, including through finding value in reusing items before discarding them.
“Zero Waste is the first step towards creating waste-wise societies,” she said. “The first step is to take responsibility and make a conscious effort to reduce our consumption of single-use plastics. Remember that everything we use and discard must go somewhere.”
The global population is on track to reach 10 billion by 2050, and demand for food and non-food agricultural products is also expected to rise by up to 56 per cent, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
Meeting this demand will require healthier and more sustainable food production and consumption, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said in a video message.
He noted that over 13 per cent of food produced globally goes lost between the production and wholesale stages of the supply chain.
“We need to urgently address the inefficiencies and inequalities in our agrifood systems to make them more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable,” he said.
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