What 11 Billion People Mean for Sanitation

[Skywizard]

http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/059/686/original/11-billion-sanitation.jpg?1385411006
The world's 3 billion urban residents generate about 1.4 billion tons of solid waste per year. By 2025, the World Bank projects that number will climb to 2.4 billion tons per year.

__________________________________________________
Hong Kong, a city of 7 million inhabitants, faces a major garbage crisis. The region's three landfills are expected to fill up completely by 2020, and even if recycling increases, the country will have to expand its landfills to deal with the thousands of tons of waste generated every day, officials say.

"Hong Kong currently solely relies on landfills to dispose of its municipal solid waste, which is not a sustainable way to treat waste," said a spokesman for Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department.

Hong Kong and its overflowing landfills are not alone. In fact, the planet as a whole faces a serious problem: what to do with the tons and tons of garbage, poop and other waste humans generate, especially with the population set to grow considerably this century.

A recent statistical analysis predicts the world population will hit 11 billion by the year 2100, outpacing United Nations estimates. By then, these piles of rubbish and other waste may become insurmountable.

Today, as an example, the world has about 3 billion urban residents, who generate 2.6 lbs. (1.2 kilograms) of municipal solid waste per person per day, a World Bank report estimates. That adds up to about 1.4 billion tons per year.

By 2025, as a result of economic development and urbanization, that number will climb to 4.3 billion urban residents generating 2.4 billion tons of waste per year, the report estimates. Where will it all go?


Read Full Story: http://www.livescience.com/41503-11-billion-people-sanitation.html


peace...
skywizard

[Joe Akulis]

Was thinking about this kind of thing a lot over the past year. Supposedly, one of the technologies that has also been suppressed over the years, along with better/free energy devices, is what they call a "materialzer". I guess it's something that can manifest things like food. If something like that ends up being real, then I wonder if there is a way to do the same thing in reverse... We can create things here by manifesting things, I wonder if it's possible to de-manifest once something exists...

Also, a good percentage of that waste is in some form of plastic. Plastic is created from resins that come from refined petroleum. I wonder if there is a way to take empty oil wells, and melt the plastic and send it back into the hole in the ground.

[avid]

Interesting point. I'm sure there are re-processing plants which are 'clean' and 'green', that wash the poisonous gasses before emitting just steam. Total recycling without the poisonous after-effects.. I doubt we want it back in the ground. The sooner the oil/gas-cartels stop the stranglehold on free energies, the cleaner and healthier we will be. What will become of those greedy globalistic energy-vampires? They'll reinvent themselves and try to hold us to ransome over anything else they can grab. Pathetic - but we should not subscribe to blackmail/oil/gas/mail/petrodollar anymore. Meanwhile - insulate and conserve whenever possible.

[Atlantean Avatar]

Perhaps if we didn't live in a disposable world. There are still many tools, household items, furniture, housing etc... which are still serviceable today. While the same items made in our current day and age are already degrading before we get to use them. Plastic these days is designed to disintegrate when exposed to UV. I have 6 green houses. The plastic covers are not designed to withstand UV. WTF ?? Most of our plastic land fill could be eliminated by designing and manufacturing products to last and when the break down they should be repairable cheaply (not be cheaper to buy a new item). This would of course mean less profits. We also could use far less packaging like we used to. I take my trolley to the local market each weekend. Buy all the food I need for the week and come home withe nothing that isn't either biodegradable. Or in the case of jars or bottles, is returned to the stall holder (washed clean for reuse).

E- wasted is another big issue. I have always had a Mac as have most of my family. We have never needed to replace or upgrade. My brother's still works fin after more than a decade of use. I also have an elderly phone, works fine.

FASHION ! Clothes, shoes, accessories, toys and gizmos. I still buy my clothes from op shops. My jeans and T shirts are more than 20 years old (without holes and looking tacky) the same cannot be said for items bought today which stretch, and get balls after one wear. If I had a time machine, I would go back and buy quality items from a time when we expected and accepted a better quality of goods.

Waste is laziness. We all need to think before we CONSUME any more crap products. Think about we really NEED it. If not, then just walk on by.

[Milneman]

OK! As a Janitor, capital J, I would like to bring some things to your attention about how you deal with stuff at work when you throw things away.

First off, I've cleaned donut places. I won't say which, but if you're from Canada you know there's pretty much only one donut place that matters. Him Tortons. Yah, that's it. At the end of a period of time, the product becomes "inedible" and is discarded. Let me tell you...I've seen 35x50" garbage cans full of perfectly good food just thrown away because there is an off chance that someone might get sick from eating it. They can't give it away for those exact reasons. They have to do this, I'm pretty certain, because if they don't their insurance companies won't insure them. Think about that. I don't go there to eat/drink coffee for that exact reason. My dad said to me over and over, still does, "You're going to eat a lot worse than this before you're dead." I think he's right! This is the way it is in every restaurant, I'm certain. If that's not enough incentive to stop, you should see how the people who frequent these places use the bathroom. Ladies. I've seen how these men use urinals. If their aim is truly that bad, you TRULY have my sympathies.

Second, people tend to throw away things that have no business being thrown away because it's just easier than taking ten steps to a recycle bin. As a janitor, I cannot sort your garbage. I have to take it on your authority that what you put in there is garbage, it's your property until the city picks it up, I can't move it around. So before you throw away a phone book, or non-essential files, make sure they're not recyclable. And if you can't finish your pop, dump the damn thing in the sink and walk the damn bottle to the recycle bin. I can't do it for you. Really. I can't. Same goes for cups of coffee. You buy a large coffee from that donut place, you drink three sips, and you throw the entire thing in the bin. Let me tell you something. Even if you change the bags, and recycled garbage bags made from recycled plastics are not strong, that coffee ends up on the carpet, the floor, on ME. Car salesmen are the worst for this.

And the new thing I love. Rather than shoveling or sweeping a sidewalk in front of a building, because there aren't enough people who either want to, or have time to, people are dumping huge quantities of salt. It melts the ice, true. It keep the insurance companies happy, true. It keeps the franchise happy. But it ruins the floors, it ruins the air...never should've quit smoking. I walk in a building and I can smell the salt in the air, and within 15 minutes I have to start heading for the water cooler. Once the snow melts, guess what....you're destroying the soil. This is NOT good for anyone, except the insurance companies. Ok and the little old ladies who might slip and fall. So how come we can't shovel it? Boy that question has a lot of dimensions, huh? :)

I'm proud to say that every chemical I use is completely biodegradable and not tested on animals. When and where I can, I use home made stuff to polish wood, you name it. And people notice!

I like what Atlantean said about a disposable world. Let me take it another step further. We have a disposable mentality. We can't keep up to it, and judging by what I find in garbage cans alone, I'm really hoping I can save enough for that micro house off the grid up north in the bush...with my solar panel/wood stove/wind turbine shot gun garden rake good book and a schnauzer by my side.

Holy crap do I sound 80 years old and grumpy! LOL

[Atlantean Avatar]

Back when I was a kid the TV was always telling us we would all live in a disposable world. When your car broke down on the freeway a giant machine would come along and suck it up and spit out a brand new one that worked. Unfortunately we just got the part of reality where everything breaks, cannot be fixed, needs to be thrown out. We have countless scrap car yards where you have to go and sift through to get a part to fix your car because the companies either no longer make that part or it is way too expensive.

We need to go back to quality versus quantity. If you have to replace your toaster and other appliances every year because it is designed with a kill switch to make it break after a certain amount of time. You can imagine what our dumps are full of.

The cruel practice of designing kid's toys to break soon after getting them home is just nasty.

The only way anything will change is if we change what we are willing to accept.