Quick fact: America’s first incinerator to be developed was at Governor’s Island, New York, in 1885.

As I’m digging through a vast amount of academic research on residential and commercial waste management in urban environments, it amazes me how much has been done to improve urban waste management and, at the same time, how much more we could do to mitigate this waste crisis.

When I say waste crisis, I’m referring to the mismanagement of resources due to the expansion of the global economy and urban environments worldwide. The world’s population is growing, and the demand for resources in developing countries is rising. How much longer will it be ’til we push the Earth to its tipping point, where natural resources and lands are stressed beyond repair, and ecosystems altered by climate change?

Let’s look at history for a second. In the Western world around 10,000 BC irrigation and agricultural practices were developed where settlers were able to stay in one area permanently. The economic system there grew based on the trading and selling of these goods and products. Then, waste generated became visible. The first municipal disposal site built was by Athenians in around 500 BC where people were required to dispose their waste at least a mile away from the city[1]. In America, the first record of waste generated was by a Native American clan was in 6500 BC, who disposed an average of 5.3 pounds of waste per day[2] (in 2014 about 21,000 pounds of residential waste is generated each day in NYC[3]).

Urban settlements began to encounter the problem of waste. The rise of unsanitary waste management led to diseases and environmental hazards. In England sanitary waste disposal was finally enacted in 1842. Entering the 21^st century, waste management in developed countries has improved vastly through the introduction of recycling, waste prevention, and composting programs, for the betterment of the society. Although in other parts of the world waste in developing and undeveloped countries still poses great problems in terms of environmental and health safety. And often, in some places, most of the waste is imported from developed countries.

Let’s talk about consumerism. Consumerism drives the economy based on economic transactions of goods and services. Companies only make products and provide services based on customers’ demands and values. As the demand increases or value goes up, so does the production, and vice versa. Without customers, there will be no business, thus no products to provide, which means there will be less waste and less energy and resources to consume. In a practical sense, as disposable income increases waste generally tends to increase. Or as population grows, waste also increases. As economic activities expand, so does waste. This clearly shows the effect of consumerism performed on the market. But there is one thing yet to acknowledge.

The very one important factor that has not been considered and is often neglected in a petroleum-based, consumption-driven society: the environment. By the environment I mean the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil we depend on for food, and the trees that provide our air. The damages to these “free” services provided by the Earth are not considered in the manufacturing costs of products and the selling of goods on the market. The consequential costs from this environmental damage is hidden, and thus are understood only as external costs. These external costs come at the expense of taxpayers’ money and society’s well being, one way or the other. Thus, in a sense, our consumerist behaviors will be paid, indirectly, at the expense of our pockets, our health, other people’s health, society’s well-being, and importantly, the environment. For instance, some of our trash and recycling in NYC travel to third world countries as a source of meager income, but with greater environmental, health, and social costs, like the plastic bottles and garbage polluting the shores of coastal fishing villages.

So exactly how can this crisis of mismanaged waste, which is the indirect consequence of consumerism, be managed or mitigated? At some point there will be no landfills available. Environmentally friendly and expensive incinerators will not be an effective solution, as they will not address the practice of mismanaged resources performed by consumers and producers. Bottom line, it’s up to the power of the people, or more clearly, the earth-power of the people. Isn’t it, after all, the people that drive the market and the economy? What if we were to boycott unsustainable products such as petroleum-based products, or boycott for more organic and sustainable farming by refusing to purchase conventional, industrial food? Or boycott for more renewable energy by turning off power at home and using candles instead? That might be a bit extreme but you get the gist. Moreover, these kinds of actions would require us to sacrifice comforts that have been embedded in our lives for many generations. Unfortunately, this boycott approach for society’s betterment looks quite unrealistic.

The change in consumerism could nevertheless be portrayed as a revolutionary event in the sense that the power in consumerism can change the course of the future, in which the consumer demands that the producers, manufacturers, and society as a whole start adopting sustainable practices that would greatly help reduce the amount of waste generated on Earth. We can voice our opinions and show where we stand by how we vote with our pockets. But again, money talks. Who can afford those not-so-cheap eco-friendly products or sustainable food? Perhaps this is where the government needs to step in, to help change the rules of the game, but only if the people demand it to do so. There lies the potential earth-power of the people. Or do we really need to ask, instead, how many more centuries would it take for a holistic, harmonic system of Earth and people to come to full realization? I certainly hope not.

[1] U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Milestones in Garbage: A historical timeline of municipal solid waste management,” February 22, 2006, <http://www.epa.gov/msw/timeline_alt.htm> (February 28, 2007).

[2] Barbalace, Roberta Crowell, “The History of Waste: Do you want to be a garbologist?,” August 2003, <http://EnvironmentalChemistry.com/yogi/environmental/wastehistory.html> (February 28, 2007).

[3] Department of Sanitation NYC. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dsny/html/about/about.shtml#.VGt-AYfg5es

This post was written by a student enrolled in the Capstone Seminar course in the undergraduate program in public policy at Hunter College. Any opinions expressed here are solely those of the student.