Vulnerability
Dipl.-Ing.(TU) Werner P. Bauer
September 17th, 2024 - destroyed cities, thousands of people in emergency shelters, at least 19 dead. At least 40 people died in floods and landslides in northern India the beginning of September 2024. There have been numerous injuries and many people are missing. Roads were flooded in the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Mud houses were swept away and bridges were destroyed. According to Reuters, 120,000 people have been evacuated in the state of Odisha. As of September 21st, 2024, millions of people have also been affected by flooding in West and Central Africa. More than 1,000 people have died as a result of the flooding. The countries affected primarily are Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan and South Sudan, as well as parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The climate crisis has made humanity vulnerable.
While it is difficult to turn away from the suffering of those affected, it must be possible to address the causes. Understanding the role that waste management plays in these disasters is of fundamental importance. In this WtERT newsletter, I would like to focus on the idea of how vulnerable waste management facilities are to flooding. What happens to a landfill during a flood, what happens to the waste in a wild dump? According to the 2018 World Bank report "What a Waste", 33% of the world's more than 2 billion tons of waste ends up in wild dumps, 36.7% in landfills.
When dams and bridges collapse, you don’t need a study to tell you that waste will be torn away and finally ends up in the ocean.
Fortunately, there are organizations like CDP, a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system to manage their environmental impacts and also gives some big players in waste management the opportunity to get help in Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). That is why we can recognize that vulnerability assessment reports already exist.
This
describes how "operations could be adversely impacted by extreme weather events, changing weather patterns, and rising mean temperature and sea levels, some of which we are already experiencing” and "have seen the impact of storms and associated flooding in our day-to-day operations and our infrastructure.” This reflects that adverse weather conditions have the potential to make a significant impact. But today, risk assessment is only about maintaining business operations and mitigating the impact of severe weather and reducing downtime in our operations. That waste will be torn away is no risk in today ERM.
In the expectation that this soon will change, I am concerned about how to overcome the numerous wild dumps. If you are not convinced till now, the
report on the Rio las Vacas serves as a striking example of this.
I don't know what you think of these pictures? I only see one way: Measures to limit the consequences of the climate crisis must begin with strict penalties for wild dumping. In addition to this a tangible tax even for secured landfill (like UK does) is necessary, so that a budget is built up to enable landfill aftercare and higher-value material and energy recovery.
Werner Bauer
Vice President of Global WtERT Council
P.S.: My today recommendation: Published Sept. 26, 2024 from
Wastedive EPA warns landfill owners to meet gas monitoring and collection obligations amid noncompliance
The agency conducted over 100 inspections and found owners not following the rules on reporting and maintenance.
Comments:
Here another example, probably among many, in which a carpet of garbage was gathered on a river in Bosnia and Herzegovina:
https://www.msn.com/de-de/video/nachrichten/freiwillige-sammeln-m%C3%BCll-aus-fluss/vi-AA1t8U1g?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=eb82c6634923420f9dd02701edfef02e&ei=18#details
31.10.2024 14:14:32
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