Sorting, recycling, composting: better waste management could easily and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from this sector, says the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) in a report published on Tuesday.
The waste sector accounts for 3.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions and one-fifth of methane emissions, a warming gas much more powerful than CO2, but with a shorter lifespan.
“Introducing better waste management policies such as sorting, recycling and composting could reduce total sector emissions by 84%,” the authors say.
It's as if the car fleet of the United States remained in the garage every year, they point out.
Emissions can be reduced in several ways: avoiding landfills that produce methane, using compost on the ground to improve CO2 capture and finally reducing upstream emissions related to the manufacture and transport of various manufactured products. , whose use can be limited and which can be recycled.
#HappeningNow
GAIA's new report reveals how zero waste is an essential, cost-effective solution to climate change that helps build more just and resilient cities, and achieve the Paris Climate Agreementhttps://t.co/fRInhHbGnt#GoForZeroWaste #BreakFreeFromPlastic #BurnNot
— GAIA Asia Pacific (@ZeroWasteAsia) October 4, 2022
Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent
By clicking on "
I ACCEPT
", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners
I ACCEPT
And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.
More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.
“An obvious solution to climate change”
GAIA offers several avenues such as the prevention of food waste and the banning of single-use plastic, the introduction of organic waste collection and processing and investment in waste recycling and composting systems.
“Better waste management is an obvious solution to climate change,” said report co-author Neil Tangri.
He added: “It doesn't require expensive or flashy new technology – just paying more attention to what we produce and consume, and what we do with those products when we no longer need them.
»
GAIA hopes that these topics can be discussed at the next UN climate conference (Cop), which opens in a month in Egypt.
At the last COP in Glasgow last November, a pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 was presented, but was not signed by some of the biggest emitters.
Bordeaux
Gironde: A waste-to-energy plant becomes one of the "cleanest" in Europe
Planet
Recycling: Why “old” rubbers are particularly difficult to recycle
Planet
Environment
Greenhouse gas
Climate change
Global warming
Recycling