the, the, it's the final day of the month. israel truth is, talks to extend to the temporary space, fire continue, and the new group is rarely hostages. is heading home, according to the red cross from us, releases to russian is really hostages. we have already made their way through the roof or crossing it to egypt. and israel is national security minister calls to ban palestinians from celebrating the return of prisoners, the director of the largest, hello cindy and human rights organization describes the terrible conditions his compatriots and his really jail. busy say the, do you mean anything, your thoughts are you the for the senior, the prisoners and sometimes they don't allow that for one month. they don't allow

them to with up to the rooms. they cut off even roots or hot water for show words and things like that. and those are the headlines we're following here on our to international next step that the cost of everything. by the while we're told to reduce, reuse and recycle constantly from a young age. how much do we actually recycle out of the trash that we generate constantly on a daily basis? we're all guilty of generating waste and trash. and while we tell ourselves that we're responsible by placing it nicely in a garbage can instead of littering, where are those that trash actually end up? that i am 50. i and you're watching the cost of everything where today or going to be breaking down the big business of trash. the average person produces $4.00 pounds of trash every day and that trash includes

everything from junk mail to food waste. every minute, 3825 tons of municipal waste are produced and collected. the largest share of this volume ends up in the landfills are open, dump sites, putting enormous pressure on the environmental and wildlife habitat. annually our planet becomes home to about 2000000000 tons of municipal solid waste or m s. w. this is comprised of all the items people use on a daily basis include food packaging, electronics, batteries, bottles, etc. now the us comes 1st in the list of countries with the highest amount of daily per capita m. s. w, followed by canada at 2.3 kilograms per capita, and australia at 2.2 kilograms per capita. now in order to understand the cost

associated with waste management, we have to break it down into its $4.00 main categories. container costs, collection costs, transfer costs and landfill costs. first, containment costs are the costs associated with the different types of containers and trash bins used for collecting trash. depending on the size, this can range between $10.00 to $300.00 a month. and then we have collection costs, which varies depending on your municipality. and location, but this will be based on weight. this can range between a $150.00 for $400.00 pounds, all the way up to $300.00 for $1600.00 pounds per collection. next, the waste has travel a long way before it reaches the landfill. you have to account for the fuel and transportation costs of getting it there. in many cases, the waste is 1st stored at a waste transfer station where it is stored and batched before be shipped to

a landfill site. finally, you have the landfill tipping fee, which is a charge levied against anyone who disposes waste and a landfill. different landfills charge anywhere from 30 to a $150.00 per ton. the gray pacific garbage pash is, and an alarm is pile, a floating trash carried by ocean herds and wins to the pacific ocean between hawaii and california. this is the largest the world's 5 ocean garbage patches and is estimated to have grown to twice the size of the state of texas. now despite all of the recycling technology in use, less than 20 percent of waste is recycled annually with the remaining a percent becoming a part of landfill sites. and now today we're joined by literally paul is professor of urban policy and planning at hunter college. now, lily, how the waste management costs vary between different types of waste,

such as municipal, solid waste, hazardous waste and electronic waste. so from the municipal perspective, thinking from the point of view of a city government, there's basically the different city as well. sort of divide the waste stream in different ways. so there are some places in the united states where everything is just garbage. so there's one collection, everything is treated as trash and everything is disposed in the same way. but there are lots of places that will divide the waste stream into different categories and not municipal waste stream includes everything that we throw away on a daily basis. so that's like all the material from our households, from businesses, from offices. basically, everything that's not produced through an industrial process. and so certain municipalities will separate, separate out the various streams of recyclable materials and every city does it differently in the us. so some places will separate out quite

a number of materials, including our food scraps and organic waste, which will be treated in one way. and then um, you know, plastics, glass metals papers might be treated in different ways as recyclable materials and then on some cities will also separate hazardous household waste. so things like cleaning products and adhesive paints, things that could be toxic if they were burned or buried. and then there's everything that's left out, everything that doesn't fit in those categories becomes trash is recycling, does the cost efficient and effective way to manage waste. and what are the factors that influence the efficiency of recycling programs? this is a really complicated question when recycling programs were 1st, which 1st began as, as municipal waste management programs in the us. this started in the 1980s through the $199.00 these, there was this dream that recycling was going to reduce the cost of waste

management significantly because there was going to be the sellable materials commodities at the other end that could generate revenue. in practice that happens occasionally, certainly with metals, those have a secondary use, smart or secondary market and they have high value. but with other materials, it's much more complicated. many regions have good paper re site, look the regional paper recycling, which allows them to generate some revenue from paper and cardboard. but in terms of glass, it's really heavy and difficult to transport, which adds a lot of costs. and in terms of plastics, there really are very few, if any secondary markets for the, the products that come out of a recycling process. and so most of these have found that recycling is still a cost, sometimes even more expensive than waste disposal. but the, the programs are really popular politically and it's difficult to cut them once they, once they exist. and so a lot of times this is,

this is causing some financial stress for municipality, certainly. and can you discuss the innovations and technologies and recycling that are improving efficiency and reducing the environmental impact of waste disposal? so there have been of some, some improvements over recent years. there haven't been a lot of new technologies. what we have seen is the, you know, certain certain processes have become more efficient. and so it is possible for instance, if a city sends a mixed recycling stream, the separation technologies have gotten more efficient. so it's easy or not easier . materials can be separated more carefully, which results in cleaner streams of raw materials that go into some kind of recycling or re manufacturing process. the problem is, those more efficient technologies are also more expensive and most cities are not investing in those processes. which means that our streams are still highly can terminated and don't have a lot of value on the back end. i would say in the us context,

we haven't really seen the benefit of improved efficiencies in terms of recycling technologies yet. anyway, largely because cities haven't had the capital invest, you know, haven't have the capital to invest in those more expensive and more expensive processes. are there successful waste reduction and recycling initiatives for policies that have significantly reduce the overall cost of managing waste and specific regions or countries? this is a great question. my, i research primarily the united states, so i can speak mostly to this market here. and what i have observed is that cities have really successfully reduced the amount of waste that's going to disposal. but it's not typically the costs that are saved in terms of waste transport and disposal. and those, those costs are shifted into other, other expenses. so pete, so those cities do a tremendous amount of public education,

a tremendous amount of enforcement and communication with businesses and residents . and they're bearing a huge amount of effort. they have full staffs devoted to, to communication and education. and that's an ongoing project. it's not a single campaign or like one set of, you know, on the highway billboards like this, this, these are ongoing costs that communities there in order to achieve the goals of waste reduction. but there are cities that have done tremendously well with it. you know, if they're willing to, if they're willing to carry those costs and particularly cities on the west coast have done a really, really good job. and often what that means is not only being really careful about what and how, what materials they recycle and how they invest in those processes. but also actually investing and waste reduction banding. materials that like really can't be recycled like starter for um, for instance, banding materials that are really that tends to be really problematic. and

a waste sorting process like plastic bags, plastic, the plastic that use that fill them to make plastic bags is technically recyclable . but when it goes into a mixed waste stream, when it goes to the equipment that sorts the materials it gets stuck. and except like it often it'll cause like shut down from the equipment and it adds a lot of cost and there's nothing to recoup on the other end. and there's no value to that material really once it gets to the other side. and so most cities won't accept that, and they're mixed streams. and certain cities have just banned the free distribution of plastic bags altogether. so these cities that have made the most progress are actually taking that there's kind of doing some downstream work and some upstream work simultaneously. we'll also investing in communication, so it doesn't make it a lot cheaper. that's like there's, i think that there is a hope or a wish for municipal governments that like, that the waste reduction plan is a cost saving plan. and i think in the long term that's true,

but in the short term, the costs have to just be reallocated for other, for other things. and ideally in the end that can lead us kind of towards of a, a broader economic system that doesn't generate so much waste. thank you so much, professor, but please stick around the professor literally, paula is will stay with us right here after the break. and when we come back, it is ironic that the high income countries are the ones producing the most waste. we'll have more right after the break the

they, those are green proxy, war and russia should have never happened before the complex and they were options amongst into the complex. there were options to end in the west refuse to negotiate . now ending this conflict is proving most difficult the

hi income countries account for just about 16 percent of the world's population, yet they generate 34 percent of the world's waste. these developed nations have had a hard time dealing with their a waste problems. so they choose to export it, develop nations also have their green agendas and cannot just insinuate the waste without risking their burgeoning carbon footprint. in the new countries like turkey and greece are treated as dumping grounds for the wealthier members, millions of tons of plastics are produced worldwide every year. and well, half of this plastic waste is recycled, incinerated or discarded into landfills. a significant portion eventually ends up in our oceans. most of this plastic waste comes from the letter and parks, beaches, or storm trains lining our streets. but a large chunk of ocean plastic comes from damaged fishing nets or ghosts nuts that

are directly discarded into the sea. while one might think that the countries producing or consuming the most plastics are the ones that pollute the oceans the most. but that is actually not true, according to study countries with a smaller geographical area, longer coastlines, high rainfall and poor waste management systems are the ones most likely to wash plastics into the sea. for example, china, and generates 10 times a plastic waste that malaysia does. however, 9 percent of malaysia's total plastic waste is estimated to reach the ocean and comparison to china's point 6 percent. the philippines is estimated to emit 35 percent of the oceans plastics of $356000.00 metric tons followed by india at a $126.00 metric tons, malaysia at $73000.00 and china at 70000 to many high

income countries generate high amounts of plastic waste but are either better processing it or exporting it to other countries. meanwhile, many of the middle to low income countries that both demand plastics and receive bulk exports have yet to develop the infrastructure needed to process it. not long ago, china used to be the world's largest importer of global trash. the trash would mostly come from developed countries to be sorted and recycled in china. however, the global trash accumulation and china cause major pollution problems. so after 2018 country started to ship their ways to other south east asian countries. malaysia, the philippines, thailand and vietnam became the major destinations for global trash. other countries included india square, long ago, and others to have had to help make up the void left by china. india used to be the

2nd largest importer of us scrap plastic, but it to announce the band on most types of plastic trash import in 2019. over 25 countries dumped 821000 metric tons of plastic waste into india illegally. and recently, we've heard instances where countries like malaysia, the philippines, tylen, and vietnam, all send garbage fields, containers back to the ex quarters, trying to illegally dump mislabeled trash. today, africa is receiving a continuous stream of incoming containers. filled with waste versus asia is now rejecting the west garbage. the costs of the damage caused by marine plastic pollution in west africa is estimated to be at around $10000.00 to $33000.00 per ton of plastic waste. the sectors hit hard by the plastic pollution, our fisheries, and the agriculture waterfront property values of biodiversity and eco systems.

africa has long been a destination for hazardous products and materials such as batteries, or used electrical and electrical components, particularly in gonna and nigeria. so for this and more, let's bring in again, lily pollens, professor of urban policy and planning at hunter college, is now lily, some countries are known as dumping ground for trash from other nations. so what are the environmental and economic implications of this practice? both for the receiving countries and the countries actually exporting the waste. so i would say like, currently in the united states, we would not have a, we wouldn't have a plastics recycling program if we didn't. if there were not markets internationally, that would accept those materials. the same with electronic waste and other waste streams. so currently the united states is a kind of materially dependent on other international markets to accept those

material streams. and overtime we have seen markets grow less absorbant less willing to accept those materials. and that has really challenged the ability of our cities to, to execute their recycling programs. but it's high without that program of export is highly problematic. and there's been a lot of, you know, it's sort of obviously the receiving countries understand how to, how problematic it is because the process is as i mentioned before, those recycling processes are really polluting. they met a lot of toxic waste in air and water pollution. and also very often just end up producing a material that can't be used and it has to end up getting burned for energy, maybe or just land felt so that that is, it's like really locally problematic for the places where those materials land in the us. we just haven't been paying attention. i would say most,

most people are really unaware of the distance that our materials travel and we don't really think about what it takes globally to sustain are like, illusion of effective recycling programs. so i think that there is a, a big education to happen here to help people kind of see how to what degree were dependent on places being willing to accept this material. which doesn't do much because harm. and are there international agreements or regulations aimed at addressing the issue of waste exports and preventing environmental harm and receiving countries? there are, i mean there are, there are, um, we do have prohibitions on exporting waste so, so one country cannot export ways to another. but we kind of avoid that by calling it recycling because then in theory it's a, it's the input for another industrial process it's, it's a considered a commodity. um, but,

so in reality it's often just waste. so we export a lot of electronic materials and fury for we spent cycling. we export a lot of plastics and theory for recycling. and they land often in like relatively unregulated markets. and as a side of the bulk of that material does end up as garbage. but we kind of of age that we evade the regulatory structure by calling it recycling and determining it to be a commodity. which i think is, you know, i don't know how long that that will last. there's been a lot of work in kind of international in, into the international mobilization to, to reduce the trade in plastics. so i haven't seen that have an impact yet, but it could are, there are countries that export a significant amount of their ways to other nations and what motivates these waste exports? well, i would say we see that kind of international trade happening in

a variety of different ways. like the us, canada countries that sort of high income countries tend to do more ways to export because they're just generating more waste. and they have the option of having a treated elsewhere. so mean the us exports a tremendous amount and other high income countries do as well. like with in europe for instance, there, there are some countries that have really sophisticated a waste energy programs where they have, they have a network of incinerators that burn their garbage, but then capture some amount of energy. they're fairly well regulated. they're, they're well maintained there. as far as incineration goes, they operate relatively cleanly. those places are, are also net importers. so they're importing waste from mostly other european countries that, that, that need, that don't have the space to do their own disposal. and are their economic

opportunities associated with waste management and recycling, such as job creation and the development of the recycling industries? yes, absolutely. as i said, i think that this is highly problematic as it relates to plastics. but there are other material streams where there's a tremendous amount of economic opportunity for me. for my observation, i think the organic way stream has the most. and there's the most to gain for with development of infrastructure and processes for, for recycling. so organics recycling, there's a number of really effective technologies for, for breaking down food scraps and other organic waste into the products that have beneficial use. so you can con, post that waste and it turns into a soil amendment which is can help. we have a tremendous internationally and especially in the united states. we have a tremendous loss of top soil due to mano culture and other claim. active changes,

monoculture, agriculture, and we need to rebuild our soils in order to sustain food production. so composting the waste is like a tremendously useful project that requires a lot of space and not every city can can invest in composting sure seems like tons and tons of space to build like it's generally just literally rows of organic materials that are slowly breaking down in contact with air, so subsidies do it, seattle to san francisco. they compost a tremendous percentage of their organic waste for a city like new york where i am cities that are denser that don't have access to you know, that kind of land. um, there are other technologies that are more suitable for, for urban applications like an anaerobic processes that can happen inside. they can be combined with, with a sewage treatment. in some instances those processes reduce the quality of the

output because there's sort of additional contamination. you can't use that for food production, but there's, it's still much, much better to putting that material in a landfill. and having it a met methane, a powerful greenhouse gas as it breaks down so. so those anaerobic processes can generate energy through a natural gas. they generate methane, but unlike an a landfill, it's capture it can be captured and used for energy, which replaces frack, gas. so there's all kinds of benefits upstream and benefits downstream, depending on how that material is used. and there also are really strong markets, like there's a need for soil amendment. there's a need for the products that come out of these processes. and it's so much better environmentally than just landfilling. some or even in some ways to energy consideration. and there's a lot of job opportunity there too because these processes require labor and they're often they sometimes are a little smelly, but they're, they are like,

safer in terms of chemical exposure than something like plastic recycling. thank you so much, professor for all your time today. today every country is striving to keep waste out of their landfills and attempting to boost their recycling programs. yet for business, considering the cost of waste management, recycling is just another expense that gets added into operational overhead. that is more expensive than trash disposal. many municipalities have come to the same conclusion that recycling is more expensive and barely even worth it. the reason for this is rooted in the global market for scrap material. the price of oil and our continued reliance on cheap single use products. previously, china bought recyclables at a cost that helped to offset the global recycling schemes and export our countries . but after 2018 china stop buying recyclables from overseas. and the price of

scrap material plummeted as exporting nations were left with waste that no one wanted having relied on china instead of investing and domestic recycling facilities. so until more money is spent to upgrade and invest in recycling, infrastructure, recycling will continue to be viewed as a burden on businesses. i'm christy. i thanks for watching and we'll see you right back here next time on the cost of everything. the the the

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