Global waste production to triple by 2100, led by sub-Saharan Africa
Some Unsettling News via Jeremy Jacquot at Ars Technica. Climate Change will not be the only environmental issue humanity will have to deal with in the 21st century.
One of the unfortunate but inescapable consequences of population and economic growth has been the unabated proliferation of trash. The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” has become as emblematic of our soaring waste output as have the millions of cheap, disposable goods that we’ve come to rely on.
Every day, we generate over 3.5 million tons of solid waste—a tenfold increase over the past century. That figure will likely double again by 2025. On our current path, it could balloon to over 11 million tons per day by 2100, a tripling of today’s rate, with sub-Saharan Africa fueling most of the growth. These worrisome projections, a group of authors argue in this week’s Nature, underscore the already obvious need to balance future population growth and urbanization with more stringent waste reduction efforts.