Waste

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WASTE

Advanced industrial societies produce enormous quantities of waste. People know it when they see it, yet waste does not admit of any strictly physical definition. Moreover what is at one point waste can at another point easily be resource. Examples include archaeological digs in archaic trash dumps, artistic creations of objets trouvés co-generation plants, and recycling centers.

However waste is defined and measured, it is safe to say that never before have humans produced and thrown away as much as they do in the early twenty-first century. Mass production through industrialization, extensive packaging (to facilitate both shipping and sales), and rapid obsolescence (whether planned or as an accidental effect of technological progress) in a free market economy, driving the compulsion to make things and consume them, have formed a world in which artifacts are produced, consumed, and discarded to an historically unprecedented extent.

Indeed there is a tendency for the lifetime of durable products to be shortened to that of consumables, and for non-renewable natural resource stocks to be consumed in the same way as renewable production flows, which some critics ascribe to the inability of free market forces to distinguish between them. Given the size of the phenomenon and its potential damaging effects on public health, the environment, and future generations, waste is one of the fundamental problems facing the technoscientific and consumer society.

Regulations

The rapid growth, diversification, and toxicity of waste production have been accompanied, though not matched, by legislation, the development of regulatory institutions, and new methods of treatment and control. Waste has become a priority of environmental risk politics for national and international authorities (for example, the European Union [EU], U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development [OECD], World Health Organization [WHO], United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP], and so on), and one of the crucial concerns of social and ecological movements (such as Greenpeace).

The roots of this politicization go back to the nineteenth century and the earliest public health reforms spearheaded by medical scientists and advocates of public hygiene (Melosi 1981). This process is related to growing feelings of repugnance and the formalizing of new rules of conduct, discipline and self-control. Waste, which was increasing as the population of urban areas grew, was synonymous with chaos, disorder, and contagion, and had to be put out of sight. The concept of matter out of place, used by Mary Douglas (1966) in an anthropological study of dirt and pollution, offers a vision of waste as something that intrudes on ordered arrangements where everything has its rightful place.

Another impulse for the politicization of waste came in the 1970s with the emergence of ecological movements and environmental ethics. Rachel Carson's pioneering book, Silent Spring (1962), was a decisive influence in these developments. In it she denounced the harmful effects on human and animal health of the massive application of DDT and other chemical pesticides in agriculture. Consciousness of ecological frailty and feelings of ambiguity in relation to the unexpected consequences of technological advances were later reinforced by environmental accidents in the fields of technology and energy (for example, Times Beach and Love Canal in the United States, and the Seveso dioxin-contaminated waste drums in Europe).

Waste Policy

Waste policy is formed as part of a wider strategy, either to decrease pollution and protect the environment, or to bring about technological and industrial change and innovation. In each of these aims, there is remarkable ambivalence regarding the technological implications.

On the one hand, technology itself is responsible for much waste production and global pollution. Each technical development, despite its many benefits, has brought an increase in the amounts and types of waste. After the non-degradable waste produced by the steel and iron industries of the early industrial era, plastic, chemical, and pharmaceutical products have given rise to even more waste products that are more toxic and difficult to treat, control, and dispose of. On the other hand, technology is also absolutely necessary for waste prevention and the disposal of pollutants. All the principles of current international waste management strategy—minimization, recycling, reuse, and improving final disposal and monitoring—depend, in general, on techno-scientific solutions. For example, the ability to recycle is built into some products at the design stage; and some technological innovations are created specifically to improve the treatment or recovery of waste.

So-called ecological or green strategies are made difficult by the many sources of waste—domestic, commercial, industrial, medical, agricultural, construction, and so on—and its physical and chemical nature, comprising (among other materials) metals, plastics, glass, paper, and vegetable matter, often in complex and hard-to-separate combinations as in batteries, cartons, and cars. When waste cannot be recycled or reused, it is usually burnt ("incinerated") at high temperatures or dumped into landfill sites. However each of these methods may cause air, water, and soil pollution, and may have harmful effects on human, plant, and animal health.

Hazardous and Radioactive Waste

Hazardous waste, and especially radioactive waste, requires extra care in its treatment and disposal. Because of their potential harmful effects—and the political, social, and ethical questions they raise—hazardous and radioactive wastes are generally the most studied. Most international policies and treaties deal with waste of these types, whose environmental problems are global in scope and indifferent to national, generational, or class boundaries. Yet despite similarities, entirely separate legislation governs the two types, and they have different regulatory institutions and interest groups.

The contents of hazardous wastes may cause serious damage to human health and/or the environment, when improperly treated, stored, transported or disposed of. There are differing definitions and systems of classification in different countries and even between states and regions of the same country. It is symptomatic that there is little agreement on the definition of hazardous, on who is responsible for this definition, and on what substances are considered as hazardous waste.

According to Brian Wynne (1987), a sociologist who has addressed environmental issues and in particular the problem of waste, the lack of consensus between countries over hazardous waste is the main difficulty for international regulation. Furthermore this type of waste is usually taken to be not dispersed and diluted in the environment, but packaged for further treatment before eventual destruction, containment, and/or dispersal, and is thus more liable to have concentrated and harmful effects. In their life cycles these wastes not only change in physical and chemical terms, but also pass through the control of various human agents. A complex behavioral-technical system therefore underpins hazardous waste, bringing together natural processes and human interaction in an unpredictable and imprecise way. This happens all over an industrial network, whose entire infrastructure—for collection, transport, storage, treatment, and disposal of waste—requires extensive regulation.

In general this type of waste is identified in three ways: (a) by reason of certain properties, detected by test procedures such as flammability (may cause or prolong fire), corrosiveness (may destroy live tissue that comes into contact with it), toxicity (inhaling, swallowing or penetration through the skin may involve serious risk or even death), etc.; (b) by the presence of toxic chemical elements or abnormal concentrations of these, also detectable by tests; and (c) by listings of specific categories of waste identified as being hazardous and for which no tests are necessary. Radioactive waste contains substances which emit ionizing radiation. Proper management and safe and environmentally sustainable storage are vital but complex tasks. Nuclear waste, depending on the source, its levels of radioactivity, longevity and hazard, may be classified in two broad categories: "high-level" (from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel) and "low-level" (generally in the form of radioactively contaminated industrial or research waste). Other categories are transuranic radioactive waste and uranium mill tailings. One may identify two key problems with this classification: first, "low-level" waste contains some elements that are more radioactive than some of those contained in "high-level" waste; second, the public tends to perceive all radioactive waste as being "high-level."

Regardless of whether the risks are great or small, citizens typically fear toxic products and their carcinogenic effects in general, and nuclear radiation in particular. Despite accusations of irrational "chemophobia," the concerns of ordinary people are based on the impact of accidents such as those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Bhopal. In addition to these accidents, and compounding the potential threat of chemical products, each year several hundred synthetic chemical products are brought to market without being subjected to any prior tests. This underlies the phenomenon of "bioaccumulation," whereby all substances that are resistant to degradation, whether tested or not, gradually build up in successive stages of the food chain.

Ethical Issues

The regulation of waste raises four key ethical and political issues. The first derives from the need for integrated waste management involving a range of actors on different levels. In addition to international responsibility—which is necessary, for example, to control exports of waste and to avoid illegal dumping in the oceans—the following are also key elements:

the model of economic development, for example one in which recycling and waste reduction activities are encouraged, leading to the idea of sustainable development;
scientific research that can salvage traditional technologies that are less harmful to the environment, invent alternative technologies, and develop products with an ecologically friendly design;
attitudes and incentives in business, where new designs and technologies can be used to minimize the environmental impact of a product;
the civic consciousness of citizens, who may demand environmentally friendlier ("greener") products, less packaging, and access to reliable information through, for example, labeling (such as the "eco-label" – a flower logo in Europe).

A second issue concerns the ethical dilemmas raised by the risks associated with waste technologies. Given the rational impossibility of a zero-risk society, the debate about the threshold of acceptable risk and how it ought to be distributed generally swings between utilitarian and egalitarian ethical perspectives. Problems arise because no standard threshold provides all citizens with equal protection from harm. Moreover that threshold, which is an average annual probability of fatality linked to some hazard, may not protect the basic rights of all individuals with their specific characteristics and needs.

For Kristin Shrader-Frechette (1991), a leading investigator of the ethical dilemmas associated with nuclear waste, it is essential to obtain the free and informed consent of those who are exposed or put at risk. Those who impose societal risks on others should compensate them in order to obtain their consent. Informed and freely-given consent and compensation are guidelines which are appropriate for avoiding popular hostility. This arises frequently in discussions on where to site waste treatment facilities, reflecting syndromes known as NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard), NIABY (not-in-anybody's-backyard), or LULU (locally-undesirable-land-use).

A third issue is the link to the methodology used in technological assessment and analysis of environmental impact. A socially acceptable study of these problems cannot be reduced to simple cost-benefit analysis based on calculations of mathematical probabilities while ignoring moral values such as equality, equity, social justice, and common well-being.

Apart from examining the magnitude, risks, and benefits, any assessment should also weigh the moral acceptability of technology, because the issues involved cannot be reduced to factual terms. To fail to recognize this is to commit a version of the naturalistic fallacy (Moore 1903) by deducing and justifying ethical conclusions from technical considerations (Shrader-Frechette 1980). This error is even more serious when found in studies used to support policy decisions relating to matters of public interest.

A final ethical consideration is that a significant number of waste-related activities, from collection to recycling, are very profitable. Indeed wastes are a vital part of the capitalist economy: consumerism and an active throwaway mentality encourage constant production and fuel ever-expanding human needs.

However the fact that an entirely new industry has developed, on a for-profit basis, to deal with the waste problem, gives rise to a conflict between public and private interests. The involvement of private groups in matters of public interest may create conflict, even though a strong public sector can encounter problems with excessive bureaucracy and consequent distortions. To avoid exacerbating such conflicts, citizens are often given access to full information on each case and/or committees of experts are appointed to give scientific opinions on the regulation of waste management.

Modern society strives for a balance between economic development and environmental protection, finding a threshold that reconciles the inevitable production of waste with a commitment to ecological sustainability. The depletion of natural resources that may not be renewable, and the (often related) by-production of hazardous waste, is an increasingly important focus of long-running debates regarding conflict between state regulation and market forces, between individual action and collective consequences, and between the practical and the ethical impact of new or newly mass-consumed technologies.

HELENA MATEUS JERÓNIMO

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carson, Rachel. (1962). Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Douglas, Mary. (1966). Purity and Danger. London: Routledge & K. Paul.

Dowling, Michael, and Joanne Linnerooth. (1987). "The Listing and Classifying of Hazardous Waste." In Risk Management and Hazardous Waste: Implementation and the Dialectics of Credibility, ed. Brian Wynne. Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag.

Melosi, Martin V. (1981). Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment, 1880–1980. College Station: Texas A & M University Press.

Moore, George Edward. (1903). Principia Ethica. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Shrader-Frechette, Kristin. (1980). Nuclear Power and the Public Policy: The Social and Ethical Problems of Fission Technology. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

Shrader-Frechette, Kristin S. (1991). Risk and Rationality: Philosophical Foundations for Populist Reforms. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Strasser, Susan. (1999). Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Wynne, Brian, ed. (1987). Risk Management and Hazardous Waste: Implementation and the Dialectics of Credibility. Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag.

Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics