The Coffee Cup and Plastic Straw

Introduction: A regular day in the life of an American

Jennifer is on her way to work when she makes her daily stop at the local coffee shop in Chicago to pick up her iced coffee for the day, served in a coffee cup with a single-use plastic straw. As an American, Jennifer produces as much waste per day as a family of four in India. Jennifer finishes her bagel and coffee on the commute, and disposes of the coffee cup and straw in the blue bin marked ‘Recycling’ at her workplace. She considers herself environmentally conscious and makes it a point to always throw her recyclables in the blue bin. Later that day, the waste hauling company, Waste Management Inc, mixes all the recycling into one truck and hauls it far away – out of sight, out of mind. This is single-stream recycling, where all recyclables (metals, plastic, paper, cardboard, etc.) are hauled in a single truck. Not knowing that neither coffee cups nor plastic straws are recyclable, Jennifer just became the reason the entire blue bin will be tossed in the landfill.

Due to a lack of awareness among people like Jennifer, waste hauling companies like WM label bins intended for recycling as ‘contaminated’ if there is a single coffee cup or plastic straw. This is one reason the recycling rate in Chicago is just 8%. Other cities in the United States also fare poorly, with New York’s recycling rate at 17% and Washington DC’s at 30%. Registering an annual revenue of USD 14.9 billion in 2018, WM is the largest waste hauler in the country. Of the 80 million tons (roughly one-third of all waste in the US) WM collects every year, just one-fifth gets recycled. This trend is not specific to WM – it is indicative of a broader issue with hauling companies in the US. In 2018, the waste management industry in the US registered an annual revenue equivalent to the entire GDP of Costa Rica. This revenue has grown steadily since 2010, while recycling rates have stagnated or decreased.

Every aspect of Jennifer’s life is impacted by unsustainable waste practices. That plastic cup and straw, left untreated in a landfill in America, will end up reaching the water that Jennifer drinks and contaminate the air that she breathes. Her commute to work is made longer by the garbage truck on the road that hauls waste from her work to the landfill or recovery facility. Landfills are the third largest source of human-related emissions in the US. Poorly managed waste disrupts all walks of daily human life. Landfills also release methane, a gas which is 85% more potent than CO2, into the atmosphere. Transportation of this waste over long distances in big hauling trucks creates an inefficient network that causes pollution and traffic congestion. The influence of this waste will only get more intrusive in daily life as time passes and public ignorance remains the norm.

From the US to Ethiopia: The journey of the cup and straw

The next day, Jennifer repeats her routine. This time, upon arrival at the WM facility, Jared, the responsible segregation manager of the facility, realizes that these two misplaced items should not cause the whole bin to be dumped in the landfill. He sends the bin with the cup and straw onwards to the recycling section of the facility. This cup and straw, along with other plastic waste, is then packed and shipped to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for recycling, where it is simply dumped onto a growing mountain of local garbage due to a lack of local recycling infrastructure.

Aisha, a 12-year-old ragpicker living near the landfill on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, scavenges – without any protective equipment – for recyclable material that will earn her $10 per week. In 2018, the US, which generates 30% of the world’s trash with only 4% of the world’s population, sent the equivalent of 68,000 shipping containers to countries like Ethiopia, Ghana, Laos, and Bangladesh – all countries with cheap labor and lax environmental laws. Jennifer’s cup and straw were a part of the 20 to 70% of this waste that is unusable and could not be recycled.

Of the waste produced in the United States, only one-fourth is recycled, either inland or overseas. In  2017, China announced the National Sword Policy, which banned the import of plastic and other  materials for recycling, crippling a global infrastructure that had previously handled almost  half of the world’s recyclables for the past 25 years. 70% of the plastic waste that the US was shipping abroad suddenly had no place to go. An unseen consequence of the National Sword Policy and a lack of infrastructure in the US is that the same plastic waste started showing up in other, poorer countries like Ethiopia. Grave concerns about plastic waste and its consequences on public and environmental health pushed almost 180 countries to sign a treaty, which allowed poorer countries to regulate the amount of plastic waste they accepted. Neither the US nor the United Kingdom, two big producers of waste per capita, signed this treaty.

Ethiopia and beyond

The mountains of trash will keep growing not just in Ethiopia, but all over the world. Today, the world generates two billion tons of waste annually, one-third of which is mismanaged. With the world rapidly urbanizing, the World Bank estimates that annual waste generation will increase by 70% by 2050. Instead of being rewarded, Aisha, who is actually contributing positively to the  environment by taking out harmful plastics from the landfill, is instead exposing herself to  respiratory problems, and cuts and lacerations – causing serious skin infections, asthma, and eye  sicknesses. Like Aisha, almost 15 million people live and work at the tips of municipal rubbish around the world.

Populations living near landfills have shown an increased risk of adverse health effects, like low birth weight, birth defects, and certain types of cancers. Hazardous electronic and biomedical waste in landfills seep harmful chemicals into the soil and groundwater, impacting populations surrounding landfills for generations. Landfills spontaneously catching fire due to a poisonous cocktail of harmful gases exacerbate air pollution and pose public health crises.

It is difficult to imagine that Jennifer’s trash disposed in the US could end up killing an Aisha in another part of the world. However, on a national scale, wealthier countries generate considerably more waste per capita than their less developed counterparts. The refusal of wealthier countries to both reduce their waste and deal with their own waste locally has repercussions for impoverished communities throughout the world. In 2017, a mountain of trash collapsed in Ethiopia, killing 113 people. These people were mostly impoverished ragpickers like Aisha living and working around landfills to avoid the high housing costs of the city. Similar incidents in other countries like Indonesia and Bangladesh have taken the lives of women, men, and children.

We can and must do better. Humanity cannot continue to accept children dying by suffocation under garbage.

A solution: One person at a time

The good news is citizens can tackle the issue with awareness and participation – which in turn will translate into political capital to spur policy makers into action. Unlike bigger macroeconomic problems like climate change, it does not require active sustained effort on the part of citizens, but simply a small behavioral shift coupled with an initial investment by the government. The cost-benefit is favorable since once the behavioral shift is achieved, the rewards are exponential. Citizens need to take proactive measures initially: to get informed about their waste hauler and switch to local recycling and composting businesses which show impact and strong recycling rates. Particularly since waste management is a decentralized issue, it must be taken up by communities to begin to change the status quo.

Americans need not look far for inspiration. Last year, the state of California passed a bill which incentivizes municipalities to switch from single-stream to dual-stream programs. Instead of collecting waste in one truck or ‘stream’, recyclable waste would be segregated for pick-up and ‘dual-stream’ trucks would collect the two types of waste separately. The policy, passed in August  2018, is already reaping benefits in Mill Valley, where a pilot project reached 99% participation rate, and a reduction in residuals through dual-stream recycling. Lower residuals mean a lower contamination level, and therefore yields a greater recycling product – an additional ton in the case of Mill Valley. This project shows that there is an inherent willingness for citizens to move towards positive waste management practices. No one actively tries to pollute the environment or cause a coffee cup and straw to be sent halfway around the world; it is a lack of awareness among people that causes such mismanagement. This project also reinforces the ripple effect of compliance after the positive impacts of social behavior start showing. Once I see my neighbors partaking in an activity which has a positive impact on me, I will start following that behavior as well.

On a governmental level, policymakers must be pushed to incentivize minimal usage of virgin material through a price on production of certain key pollutants, which will provide economic incentives to internalize the use of the environment in the economic system. There are examples in other parts of the world of a paradigm where sustainable usages of material are not just encouraged but enforced through law – one of which is the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan, which lays out bold strategies like all “plastic packaging should be recyclable by 2030”. It also has a monitoring framework which “monitor[s] the key trends to help identify success factors and to assess whether sufficient action has been taken.” Other success stories include cities like Indore in India where sensors are attached to garbage trucks and waste bins to indicate their weight and composition in real-time, increasing data accessibility and transparency.

Hierarchy of Waste Management detailed by the Environmental Protection Agency

The US, with its technological might and innovative spirit, has the potential to set an example for the rest of the world in sustainable waste management practices. The goal is to ultimately reach a society and economy that is circular – one that minimizes the usage of new material from the environment and uses materials that easily integrate back into the economy. The mountains of waste are immense, but they are not insurmountable. Once smart policy initiatives and incentives – examples of which are already being seen in parts of the country – are put in place, this goal will require little effort on the part of the country’s population. Through political and economic action, we can not only help the environment but also create a sustainable circular model of economics that reduces dependence on new materials from the environment and maximizes those already in use.