# name
Landfill Earth: A Global Perspective on the Waste Problem

# metadata.dc.description[].value
Màster en Diplomàcia i Organitzacions Internacionals, Centre d'Estudis Internacionals. Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2019-2020. Tutor: Ana G. Juanatey

# metadata.dc.description.abstract[].value
The 20th century’s increase in waste generation has caused waste management to emerge
as one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. As countries have found themselves
overwhelmed with the task of managing the waste they produce, they have resorted to trade as
a cheap management practice (Asante-Duah & I.V.N., 1998; European Environment Agency,
2019; Lipman, 2002; Sembiring, 2019). The biggest importer of waste in recent decades has
been China (Greenpeace, 2019); however, the country has recently begun to impose regulations
and bans on the waste trade (Mosbergen, 2018; SRS Media, 2019; Zhao, 2017). This has had a
huge impact on the global waste management system, pushing many countries’ domestic
recycling facilities close to collapse and altering the direction of international waste flows, since
most countries’ response is still to look for alternative dumping places instead of improving
their own waste management systems (Media, 2019; Katz, 2019; Anthesis, 2019; Ross, 2018;
European Environmental Agency, 2019; Greenpeace, 2019).
Many recent studies have focused on the impact that the waste trade has had on the
environment, since importing countries tend to have lower environmental standards and
management capabilities. Sembiring (2019) does not seem to condemn it: she sustains, after
having analyzed the industry from an economic and environmental perspective, that this system
seems to be the most effective way to allocate resources to manage waste. However, other
researchers in the field such as Asante-Duah & I.V.N. (1998) and Lipman (2002) tend to take
a sharply critical approach to the waste trading and denounce the implications it has for human
health and the environment. Furthermore, Lipman (idem) refers to the “polluter pays” principle
to assert that countries should solve their waste problems themselves as it is their responsibility
to deal with their own waste, rather than exporting it to industrializing countries in an even
worse position than themselves to solve it. This is a view shared by many environmental and
trade academics.
All in all, there is a quasi-consensus that the current waste trade has a short-termist
approach to waste management and is based essentially on economic principles that disregard
environmental issues. However, few researchers have proposed long-term sustainable solutions
to the problem or addressed its root —the overproduction of waste. On this note, it is worth
mentioning the contribution by Singh (2014) who points to the lack of a holistic approach to
the waste management system that aims at reducing waste from the start point of product
creation, rather than only after the waste has already been produced. She claims that our
practices should focus on preventing the problem rather than finding solutions to it. In practice,
while there exists some international regulation for waste trading, there is an absence of a
collective, holistic and long-term approach to solving the global waste problem. Starting from
the hypothesis that the existing legal definitions of waste complicate waste minimization, this
paper aims at addressing the aforementioned issues. In other words, by analysing the current
global waste management system, this paper also intends to show how the lack of a more
holistic approach to the management system thwarts any effort at managing, and more
importantly, reducing waste.

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Màster Oficial - Diplomàcia i Organitzacions Internacionals

# metadata.dc.title[].value
Landfill Earth: A Global Perspective on the Waste Problem