We need to rethink our relationship with waste.

What is waste, really? At a distance, it is something for which no one has any use. But look much closer and you see that waste really is a collection of basic elements. By simple example, wood is made up of a combination of organic polymers and bio-polymers consisting of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The plastic surrounding my computer is a bit more complicated, but I am told it is comprised of polycarbonates that are derived from hydrogen and carbon.  Clearly, we have a need for carbon—wars have been fought over it. And as the most abundant element in the Universe, hydrogen has hundreds of commercial uses. My point here is that in India and elsewhere, if we start to think of waste as basic elements that can be reorganized into something useful, then it’s very easy to see how over time, waste streams can become assets rather than liabilities.

At least three things need to occur in India in order to make this happen and none are insurmountable.

1. Government needs to put a price on waste. This is happening elsewhere in the world, most notably in UK, where landfilling is strongly discouraged through progressive landfill avoidance taxes. Such an approach encourages less generation of waste, but more importantly it creates economic incentives for the creation of advanced, non-incineration technologies that convert waste into basic chemical elements.
2. With the economic driver outlined above, advanced technologies will quickly come to market which are capable of converting materials which otherwise get landfilled into a synthesis gas which can function as a sustainable building block to energy generation, manufacturing of consumer products, chemicals, and so on. Key to this will be early adoption by industry leaders. Why? Because in many cases Industry controls its own waste streams, and these can be more easily amassed than municipal waste streams. Further, leading industrial players are already beginning to develop strategies for reducing their own greenhouse gas emissions in anticipation of a world that is becoming increasingly carbon-constrained.
3. Environmental groups need to advocate for technology solutions in addition to traditional approaches of encouraging abstinence. In the past, this has been problematic because the only technology available was incineration. Today there are many new non-incineration technologies, which operate on different economic models, plant sizes, and with more flexibility with respect to end product.

To be sure, this isn’t easy. India is challenged by municipal waste material of lower Btu value than other countries. It also has a deeply entrenched segment of its population that derives its livelihood from waste. This doesn’t need to be an obstacle. The efficiency and skills of rag pickers can be combined with technology, to create a new and higher class of jobs geared around the transformation of India’s burgeoning waste problem into a national asset.

So while no one likes to think about waste, maybe this is the exact moment in time to think about waste in an entirely new way.