JEMIMA PELLATT: Curb and conserve: waste management and climate change mitigation

An estimated more than 250-million tonnes of plastic will probably have entered the ocean by 2030. To translate that into something easier to imagine, that is equivalent to 33-billion elephants.

OK, not so easy to imagine. But beyond the sheer magnitude of mismanaged waste ending up in our open environment having a direct and visible impact on health, happiness and economic prosperity, there is an increasing not-so-visible effect on climate emissions.

The aviation industry is often fingered for significant emissions (reported to be about 3.5% total CO₂ emissions equivalent globally, but waste management actually accounts for about 5% of total global CO₂ emissions equivalent, and these emissions are expected to almost double from 1.6-billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2016 to 2.6-billion tonnes by 2050. 

It is not the full picture. It is likely that emissions from the waste sector are much higher. The main global reporting tools developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consider emissions from functional waste management systems only. These include landfills, incineration without energy recovery, and composting facilities. Emissions associated with transport and treatment (incineration for energy and recycling) are included in other sectors’ emissions or are not included at all. 

But what about emissions from waste mismanagement, such as burning, open dumping and poor transport links? Considering that about a third of waste globally is mismanaged, current reporting methods provide a disjointed perspective. Not only are emissions from waste management underreported, but reports are confined to functional waste management service chain parameters.

Decisionmakers may thus prioritise emission mitigation efforts in other sectors, despite low-cost, high-impact opportunities for climate change mitigation associated with functional solid waste management systems resulting in clean, waste-free environments (a win-win). 

The “obvious” solution would be ensuring all emissions associated with waste management are reported under the waste management sector. However, considering some of the emissions related to solid waste management such as waste-to-energy facilities are so cross-cutting, other more pragmatic and actionable solutions may be required. This may include the use of more robust reporting tools to feed into decision-making that assesses country-specific needs, including those in which waste mismanagement is a significant challenge. 

Comprehensive recycling

Tools have been developed that can bridge this gap, such as the World Bank’s Climate Action for Urban Sustainability (Curb) scenario planning tool, developed in partnership with the C40 Cities Leadership Group. This tool, which includes waste as a priority sector, benefits from extensive inbuilt data to support analysis within countries where there are data gaps, a common challenge regarding greenhouse gas reporting.

It has been used in many cities, including Johannesburg, Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Amman (Jordan), to support the identification of strategic areas for intervention, such as comprehensive recycling and waste reduction programmes. In Amman the Curb tool has been used to inform the Amman Climate Plan, which includes short-term strategies to stem emissions such as landfill gas capture and longer term strategies to move towards a zero-waste framework. 

Another practical tool is the Climate & Clean Air Coalition’s Solid Waste Emissions Estimation Tool (Sweet), which enables cities to get a baseline measurement of their waste emissions and to monitor it, including the impact of interventions on emission levels over time. In São Paulo, Brazil, Sweet calculations have been integrated into the city’s overarching strategic objectives to minimise and redirect solid waste away from landfills.

This has served as a catalyst for expanding decentralised composting facilities. The use of Sweet baseline data in East Delhi, India, led to the city supporting the development of decentralised composting facilities and biomethanation plants that supply energy to the main grid in a cleaner way, as opposed to former plans to expand the capacity of the existing incineration plant. 

There is a lot to discuss at this year’s COP28, but I would urge speakers to prioritise waste emission reporting methodologies, as this is a cross-cutting issue to fast-track the transition to a low CO₂ world while enhancing living conditions for people and the health of our oceans. These tools, which are readily available, should be used and incorporated more frequently to enable effective reporting and, hopefully, more informed decisions to be made on climate change mitigation actions. 

I look forward to a robust discussion this year that leads to actionable plans that holistically support all. 

• Pellatt is a principal environmental consultant for RSK Environment (East Africa).