Too hot to think!

Did you ever think that on a spring May day, you’d be closing the windows and drawing the curtains to keep out the heat? Yet this past week, that’s exactly what many people had to resort to. One day of sunshine – great! A week of it, and most struggle to function.

Our UK urban environments were designed for cool, overcast weather, now we’re reaching for ice, debating whether to install an air conditioner, and talking about how to adapt… in May… it’s not even summer yet.

And in the middle of this, newspaper headlines show pictures of people sunbathing, and talk about soaring temperatures as though it’s an invitation to start summer holidays early. Something to celebrate instead of urgency to tackle the cause.

“Of course, everyone knows it’s related to climate change, but really what is the average person supposed to do about it, we can’t change the weather?” People say this without realising that they already have.

Consumers, industries, even waste management have all contributed to global warming. The problem is that everyone thought their impact was too small to matter, we were wrong. It’s all adding up.

Unthinkable but true

When it launched, the Titanic was declared unsinkable, yet we all know how that ended. It wasn’t a single event or action that sunk the Titanic. Yes, the iceberg impact gouged a hole in the hull which resulted in water ingress, eventually breaking the ship in half. But the tragedy of lives lost as recorded in history doesn’t recognise only a single factor.

As with any major catastrophe, it’s multiple small decisions that all culminated in more lives lost. Decisions by engineers, the ships designers, owners, crew, passengers and even the other vessels that went to assist. People that knew and those that didn’t. Nobody believed there was any real risk of the Titanic sinking. Are we in the same boat now? Believing that a little more sunshine isn’t a real risk?

Thinking abstract is distracting

The problem with talking about heatwaves as a result of climate change is that it’s still an abstract concept for most. There are so many contributing factors and mitigation is complex – more the domain of scientists. Even with the evidence of more frequent extreme weather events, in people’s minds it still feels out of their control. There’s little connection to the every day actions we take that are adding to the problem.

We talk about heat pumps in homes, taking public transport, composting food waste, and all of these actions help. The challenge, however, is that it’s often taken regulation to force change. Data and evidence on its own weren’t enough.

And then there’s the complexity that’s all too familiar to the waste management sector. Efforts to clean up waste are also contributing to greenhouse gasses (GHG) and adding to planetary warming. There’s a strong focus on productivity to handle the increasing volumes of waste. This is important, however, how often does de-carbonisation enter the conversation as a business priority?

Just another industry sector

The impacts of methane emissions from landfill are well documented. They make up 70% of emissions for the waste management sector. It’s been one of many reasons for shifting to alternative waste management systems. Incineration is often viewed with scepticism, process heavy recycling methods, equally so. Then there’s plant machinery and heavy-duty transport often needed to transport loads. Are emissions unavoidable or could the waste sector be doing more to decarbonise?

On the positive side, progress is already being made in electrifying transport and collection fleets, re-using excess heat from processes and tapping into technology to monitor energy use. Landfills remain a major challenge though. While there are concentrated efforts to divert compostable and recyclable waste from landfill, there are still tonnes of existing mixed waste rotting into the ground. Add to that the waste crime crisis and it’s another expensive distraction.  

Some might argue that waste management’s total emissions account for on only 3,7%, which is significantly lower that construction or manufacturing. However, that would be returning to the view that small impacts don’t matter. Not sure that argument still holds given the sweltering temperatures we’ve been experiencing. 1.5 degrees centigrade warmer on average was the warning line. We’ve already passed it. I’d think that every small effort to reduce emissions would be significantly important.  How can the waste sector accelerate its efforts?