Every year, the world generates more than 2 billion tonnes of trash.
That’s enough to fill over 800,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
About a third of the world's waste is being openly dumped or burned.
This is a challenge we’ve seen over and over, where users are unable to pay for use
where users are unable to pay for use of the system, where there’s an affordability gap.
And by the year 2050, the amount of rubbish generated annually is expected to increase
to 3.4 billion tonnes.
As the rubbish piles up, no number of landfills and recycling programs
can keep pace with this growing problem.
So what's the solution?
The waste management process comprises the collection, treatment and disposal of waste.
Solid waste can come from several sources, mainly from residential and commercial properties,
and industrial facilities, such as medical, electronic and construction waste.
With COVID, overall we’ve seen medical waste increase about 40%.
It's often the poor that are the most affected by lack of waste management services,
whether it's because they're not receiving waste management services due to
where they're living or waste is being dumped by the communities.
Even as medical waste piles up, it’s a tiny fraction of municipal solid waste.
Of the 2 billion tonnes of waste generated globally, 12% is plastic waste,
but it’s dwarfed by food and organic matter, and paper & cardboard scraps.
Once all that trash is collected, there are 3 main ways it is treated and disposed of:
by burning the trash in an incinerator, using a landfill
or dumping it openly without any processing whatsoever.
While 33% of global waste end up directly at open dumps,
governments are increasingly recognizing that these sites are bad for the environment
and can be vectors for diseases.
Instead, they are opting for more sustainable ways to manage their waste, such as incinerators
and recycling programs.
Nowhere is this more pronounced than in densely populated Singapore,
which has nearly 8,000 people per km²,
more than 17 times that of India and 200 times that of the U.S.
Between 1970 and 2016, the amount of solid waste disposed in Singapore increased about
7-fold as its population and economy grew.
Of the 7 million tonnes of waste generated in the country in 2019,
more than half were recycled.
The journey of a single piece of trash brings us to Tuas South Incineration Plant,
the largest waste incineration facility in Singapore to date.
Kan Kok Wah is the general manager of the plant,
one of four such facilities in the country which can convert waste into energy.
Waste is collected from industrial, commercial premises and household premises.
An average of about 600 trucks are coming to Tuas South Incineration Plant.
They will discharge the waste into the bunker.
Cranes will then grab and feed the waste into the incinerator.
The temperature in the furnace is about 850 – 1,000 degrees.
You will achieve a 90% reduction in terms of volume.
This will then help to conserve the space required for landfill.
Singapore is a very small country.
It’s land-scarce.
So the need to conserve land is very critical for Singapore.
Along the way, we have magnetic separator.
Ferrous and non-ferrous metal will be recovered from the ash.
Ash will then be transported from the ash pit to another facility.
Pollutants produced during incineration are treated before being released into the atmosphere,
ensuring clean air is being discharged.
Water will be converted into steam from the energy recovered from the combustion of waste.
This water will be then converted into high temperature, high pressure steam
to run turbine generators.
This is to produce electricity power.
20% is being consumed internally, with the rest being exported to the national grid.
The total power generated by the four waste-to-energy incineration plants in Singapore,
including Tuas South,
contributes about 2–3% to the national electricity demand in the country.
An upcoming waste-to-energy plant built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
and water treatment company Hyflux will be able to incinerate
3,600 tonnes of waste per day while generating electricity to be self-sufficient
and providing excess power to the national grid.
How much waste is collected and managed in TSIP?
In 2019, about 1.08 million tonnes of waste is collected.
That’s equivalent to about 3,000 tonnes of waste daily.
After the incineration process, my journey takes me on a ferry to the country’s only
landfill located along the Singapore Strait, one of the busiest waterways in the world.
Semakau Landfill is an off-shore landfill enclosed by a 4.3-mile perimeter rock embankment,
which creates a sea space to fill with incinerated rubbish.
In operation since 1999 and costing nearly half a billion dollars,
the island is more than just a landfill.
Actually we are made up of two big islands called Pulau Semakau and Pulau Sakeng and
these two are joined together to what we see here.
350 hectares of Pulau Semakau Landfill.
A barge ferries more than 2,000 tonnes of waste between mainland Singapore
and Semakau Landfill daily, says Desmond Lee, general manager of the landfill.
We have big equipment such as the dump truck, excavators, etc.
These are equipment that we use daily, and you can hear-
What’s going on there?
This barge actually comes from the Tuas Marine Transfer Station
from Tuas, travels 33 kilometres journey all the way here.
Tell me about how the ash is going to get transferred out.
There is what is called the long-arm excavator.
This excavator will grab the ash and as well as non-incinerable waste,
and drop into what we call the dump truck.
The trucks will then unload the ash into specific cells within the lagoon.
To prevent leaks and contamination of the sea water outside the rock bunds,
the perimeter is lined with impermeable membrane and a layer of marine clay.
As the water level within the lagoon increases with rainfall and the dumping of the ash,
the overflow is discharged into the open sea
after being treated at a wastewater treatment plant.
If you travel around Semakau, you'll see there's a lot of mangroves around,
and there are also beautiful corals.
This is a testimony to the absence of adverse impact from our operational landfill.
We also want to ensure the marine life and nature in this area continue to strive.
How filled is Semakau Landfill right now?
Based on the current waste generation, Semakau Landfill will be completely filled by 2035.
However, there are current plans to work together with the different government agencies, businesses
as well as communities to look into how we can extend the life of Semakau Landfill.
What lessons can we learn from Singapore’s other previous landfills?
One key lesson that we learned is that it takes a long time to remediate the landfill.
And then there's also resources needed to commit to them
before the land can be remediated for other uses.
The other strategy we are also taking is looking at the possibilities
of recycling the incineration bottom ash,
which is now known as NEWSand,
and could be used for non-structural concrete, for example.
To date, NEWSand has been used to create footpaths and benches,
while tests are ongoing for its application in road construction projects.
Landfills are a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
In land-scarce Singapore, which is slightly smaller than New York City,
space is a luxury,
and it's a matter of time before Semakau landfill is full.
Singapore aims to reduce the waste going into Semakau Landfill by 30% by 2030
as part of its Zero Waste Masterplan.
The country also intends to develop new waste management facilities,
to meet the treatment needs of wastewater, sludge and even food waste,
ultimately improving the recycling rate in Singapore.
Despite the high rates of recycling among developed nations, high-income countries,
which account for 16% of the world’s population, generate 34% of global waste.
Conversely, about 5% of the world’s waste come from low-income countries,
even though they make up 9% of the world’s population.
Notably, the U.S., Canada and Bermuda, all high-income nations in North America,
generate one of the highest average amount of waste per capita.
However, the trend is expected to reverse in the next few decades as low-income countries
experience economic growth and a population boom.
For over two decades, China was the dumping ground for nearly half of the world’s scrap,
with much of it originating from developed countries such as the U.S., U.K. and Australia.
All that changed in 2018 when China imposed a blanket ban on 24 types of imported waste,
citing the need to protect its environment and public health.
The magnitude of the problem was laid bare when other countries in Southeast Asia also
started rejecting plastic waste from the rich, industrialized countries.
In 2019, the Philippines sent back containers of waste to Canada and South Korea,
while waste from Spain and Australia that were sent to Malaysia were similarly rejected.
Waste management is very expensive.
And it should not be looked at as being an economic activity to generate revenue,
but as a public service that requires financing.
Not just financing that is affordable for the population and for the country as such,
but also in terms of legislative environment and regulation, and monitoring and enforcement.
All of these pieces of the puzzle should be in place,
because at the end of the day as we have seen many times
there is always an easy way out, and that is to pollute the environment.
It takes years and concerted effort to switch the way we as a society behave
so that we increase the recyclability of our waste.
More companies are also applying environmental, social and corporate governance standards
to their operations.
While this is the latest trend in town, it remains to be seen if businesses can be both
ethical and profitable, benefitting stakeholders, society and the planet.
Citizens are key to changing the waste management system moving forward.
So, whether it's the day-to-day behaviour of reducing waste, being willing to be educated
and participate in recycling and recovery, being willing to pay for the services so that
the city can offer more management of waste in a proper way.
Each person generates nearly 2 pounds of trash daily,
so changing the throwaway culture will have a direct impact
on how the world looks like for future generations.
The journey to reduce, reuse and recycle then, begins with us.