A waste-free future!

By S R Ranjan: We are a part of nature and have a symbiotic relationship. How we sustain our lives has a bearing on this relationship between humankind and the ecosystems that affects future sustainability and coexistence. Evolving scientific and environmental scenario, and the changing paradigm issues like climate change, pandemics, biodiversity loss, rapid urbanisation and human actions have shifted the world focus on sustainable goals. The 2020 edition of a WWF report  – Living Planet Report –  developed along with the Zoological Society of London states that in the last 50 years our world has been transformed by an explosion in global trade, consumption and human population growth, as well as an enormous move towards urbanisation. “To feed and fuel our 21st century lifestyles, we are overusing the Earth’s biocapacity by at least 56%,” says the report.

As the world recovers from the global health crisis – the COVID-19 pandemic – to build better in a ‘new normal way’, the Living Planet Report 2020 shows that there is an opportunity for the world to learn from the past mistakes to mitigate risks of future pandemics by taking right decisions to heal our relationship with nature for a better future. For this, nations, governments, world leaders, organisations, businesses, companies, societies, communities and people around the world have to come together and work unitedly to achieve the sustainable goals. “We still have a chance to put things right. It’s time for the world to agree to a new deal for nature and people, committing to stop and reverse the loss of nature by the end of this decade and build a carbon-neutral and nature-positive economy and society,” says WWF International director general Marco Lambertini.

Moreover, reportedly, data from the United Nations Environment Programme shows that per person, our global stock of natural capital has declined by nearly 40% since the early 1990s, while produced capital has doubled and human capital has increased by 13%. Now, the question is how do we strike a balance to reverse this trend? A ‘quick’ answer is sustainability as a future model for all- inclusive growth and lifestyles.We have to adopt nature-based solutions like ‘sustainable development goals’,  ‘circular economy’ and ‘reusable consumption’ to preserve nature, protect the planet and promote societal well-being.

Today, people’s choices, patterns and scale of consumption of goods and services are playing a defining role in the changing world environment and happenings. The COVID-19 pandemic is a clear manifestation of our wrong choices, unmindful use of resources and  broken relationship with nature. In order to halt further damage and wasting, the world has to follow sustainable models like circularity to implement product reuse, repair, re-manufacture and recycling as an economic growth model and embrace consumption models that are waste-free.

For a sustainable future, to build a waste-free world, we need consumption models which will contribute to the continued viability of systems that are environment-friendly. In this context, a World Economic Forum’s report  – Future of Reusable Consumption Models  – produced in collaboration with Kearney, aims to advance responsible models of consumption that are better for the people and planet. “The report builds on proprietary research to create a framework for the viability of reuse systems and serve as a guide for the scaling of reuse.”

From a record-breaking level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to solid waste, which has grown from 23 gigatonnes 1990 to 78 gigatonnes in 2020 and a projected 127 gigatonnes by 2050, to plastic waste, the Future of Reusable Consumption Models report states alarming statistics to see how the profusion of waste might contribute to ecological degradation and lasting damage to ecosystems worldwide. How to address a future in which waste no longer stays as waste, but is reabsorbed into the productive cycle and repurposed? Replace linear economy with circular economy in which items are reused or recycled indefinitely. Reuse is the subject of this report and examines the stake to ensure the success of a reuse-centred consumption paradigm and outline a path to systemic change.

(Singh Rakesh Ranjan)  

Freelance Journalist