Only a few really recycle. Rubbish piled high in the streets of beirut after lebanons largest waste dump closed in 2015. It was already groaning under 15 million tons of excess trash. Thousands took to the streets to protest against the situation. Has anything changed since then . Repoporter the bebeaches in e lebanese c capital beirurut coue beautiful. But the realitisis they oftften half burieied under garbrbage. So thehese young peoeople ae getting ready to transform their local beach. Theyre taking part in a campaign called run and clean. Its the brainchild of eddy bitar and his ngo live love beirut. The group spends part of the time jogging and the rest picking up litter. The events draw up to 200 people. Many young people in particular are fed up of waiting for the lebanese government to take the initiative. Eddy this is part of the outcome of the crisis that we had a few years ago. We see that people are more and more concerned witith all the problems facing the environmnmt in lebanon. And we are very happy to see that all the people, young people, families, youth, are all coming all together in order to remove all the trash. Reporter much of the rubbish that the group picks up was not dropped on the beach, but washed up by the sea. Thats because beiruts two largest garbage dumps are located right next to the water. The team spirit is clearly evident as young people from beiruts muslim and Christian Communities come together in a rare joint project. There is a lot of pollution in lebanon. So we could do anything, just so we can help. The local authohorities are absent when it comes to Waste Managementnt. And i think we should put it on record that while we were running to clean this part of the beach, the coast, we saw the mayor walking in the opposite direction. And we asked him to come help and lead by example, and he said he was too busy. Reporter three years ago, local residents forced the closure of what was then the main local dump. Garbage was left to mount up in the streets of beirut, as Garbage Collection Services were simply suspended. Najat saliba heads up the Nature Conservation center at the american u university of beiru. She says the government let the crisis happen, d despite repead rninings. Dr. Salibait will happen again. Because we dont see from the government any plan to implement a sound Waste Management solution. So it will happen in se citities, but in some other cits where positive change has been already implemented, it will not happen. Reporter these days, garbre collection is once again working normally in beirut. But the trash is simply taken to a new dump. Sometimes it goes toto an incinerator, but that pollutes the air. Recycling containers like these are not t yet widespread. These ones were provided by ziad abi chakers company. He says since the garbage crisis, more people are keen to see recycling introduced. Ziad peopople have really embraced it and theyre asking us for more and more locations. But the problem we have is that sometimes people leave their bags outside the bins. They dont put their stuff in. And if you keep bags out, other people just bring in unsorted garbage bags and they will place it near ththose bags. And then soooon enough it degenerates into a mini landfill. Reporter in addition to the recycling waste, his company also sorts through 20 tons of household garbage each day. Hes employed 23 Syrian Refugees to do the work, giving them proper contracts and the local minimum wage, equivalent to some 500 u. S. A month. The company collects metalal, textiles, paper, and huge amounts of plastic. Ziad abi chaker opened the facility in the middle of the garbage crisis, taking out a loan of more than 700,000 u. S. The garbage processed here gets 100 recycled. Organic waste, which makes up a High Percentage of garbage in lebanon, is turned into compost. Ziad the problem was before the crisisis is that all this wase would go to a landfill. When the crisis happened, this was the instigation to build a facility like this one where you have sororting and composting, d where nothing goes to the landfill or the incinerator. Rereporter but thats not a. On the roof of this Refugee Centre in beirut, hes putting some of the recycled waste to good use. Ziziad abi ckekers mpmpany mas what he calllls ecoboards out f Plastic Waste. Theyre used to create raised beds for vertical gardening. The beds are filled with compost generated from the organic waste. The rooftop offers over 100 square meters of space on which to grow w vegetables. There are 3000 plants here in all. A group of women at the refugee home have set up a Catering Service using the vegetables. Its their own company. Wafaa im working in that kitchen. So, i have the big chance to go outside my home, have good friends, and income for my familyly. Reporter meanwhile, eddy bitar from the Beach Cleanup Campaign is pursuing new solutions for beiruts waste disposal. A mobile phone app allows residents to have paper and Plastic Waste collected from their homes. His drivers deposit the waste in the garage, ready for a Partner Company to collect and recycle it. Theyre now getting between 60 and 100 orders a day. Eddy we do believe that theres room to grow and that people wantnt more of those services because its helping them in their daily life. Reporter in just six months, 15,000 people have downloaded eddy bitars app, and 5000 households are now using his service regularly. Host half of all clothes also find their way into the trash. Most within a year, many of them unworn. Every second, the equivalent of a truckload of textiles arrives at a trash depot or is burned, making 500 billion u. S. Worth of wasted goods a year. The clothing industry is also environmentally damaging. Every year, over half a million tons of textile microfibers end up in the oceans, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles. Greenpeace says that between 2000 and 2014, worldwide clothing production doubled. Its now around 100 billion items of new clothing each year. In germany, consumers buy an average of 60 such items annually and wear them just half as long as they did 15 years ago. Reporter sven steinmann from the German Clothing Foundation is a patient man. And he doesnt mind his job, unpacking boxes of discarded clothing and blankets in the city of helmstedt. But over the past five years hes noticed a change. People now throw in all kinds of items that simply dont belong here. Sven a construction site warning lamp. Reporter clothes banks are increasingly being used as garbage containers. Perhaps a case of people not only having too many clothes, but too much of everything. So how has this happened . The cotton fields hahave traditionally beenen a key facr in the production and pricing of quality clothing. Global cotton production is on the rise, climbing 14 last year alone. Nevertheless, the proportion of textiles containing cotton has dropped. Thats because of the growing overproduction of clothing and other textiles worldwide. Cotton is gradually y being didisplaced by s synthetic fibi, with the chemical induststry ear to expand itits share of t the supply chain. As a quick glance around shopping zones in german confirms, synthetic clotng is all the rage. In addition to the low prices, it can cater to different requirements, being comfortable, durable, and breathable. An Umbrella Organization for clothing collectors in germany is alarmed by the trend towards more and cheaper textiles. Thomas every year in germany one millllion tons of tetextilee ththrown away. Thatats the equivalent of a que of trucks covering 1000 kilometers. Its unrealistic to expect all that material to be used for people in need. We calculate that less than 10 is actually given to local charitable initiatives. Repoporter as for other 90 0 , thats passed on to sorting companies, which later sell it on the world market. The price those Companies Pay has fallen in recent years to 300 euros per ton. Five years ago they were paying 400 per ton. Back then, the surplus of used clothes was not as excessive. And the quality was better, too. Thomas the proportion of poorerquality textiles, those which are no longer wearable, is rising. And the problem, especially with these lowquality items, is that theyre often only partially recyclable, if at all. Reporter if you believe the advevertisers, peoeople who wao look g good don a nenew outfit y day. Y. Wardrobes i in many wesn countrtries are bursting at te seseams because e clothes are e. Or r rather, in mamarket speak,d vae for momoy. And d compliant t cuomerers du other Global Retail chains are ththe prorising sharply. H h m, a as are their share prices. And customers are wearing clothes for evershorter periods of time. Its a classic consumerist cycle. Sven steinmann from the German Clothing Foundation has reached the next collection point. This makes the one with the building site beacon look pretty orderly. So whats his impression of this container . Sven not so nice. I guess were a throwaway society, sadly. Something smells a bit rancid here. Reporter what does he mean by rancid . Sven it stinks, like someones thrown away their rubbish in here. Reporter what was his most extreme experience so far . Sven rotting food, with maggots. Ive seen it all. Reporter but poor hygiene is not the only problem facing the clothes collecting organizations. The materials have become noticeably thinner. Parcel donations help to compensate for the declining quality. People who send donations by post to the German Clothing Foundation tend to wash the garments beforehand. They seem to give more consideration to those in need. Nonetheless, its becoming increasingly expensive to ensure the requisite quality when it comes to the bales of compressed clothes that eventually go for sale on the world market. Ulrich we have to sort through a huge amount, just to get the 4 or 5 of good q quality ite. Around 80 w we can only selelo industry for u use as filler mamaterial, and use the incomeo finance relief aid projects. Reporterer but its a a system under threatat. Africacan markets, w which for decades haveve provided nenehos toto german caststoffs, are bebg momore selectiveve. Anda, for example, is making foforts tooostst itswn smallscale textile induryry. Ths o one reason whwhy the economic area the east aicican mmununity nts toto ht importrt ofof secondhandnd clothes stag nenext year. s a mapapplauding. Say is loafter all,l, many consumumersn coununtries like u uganda do bet omom accesto u used ropeanan clothes. Thas for a t of peoe, sendhand the besoption for tting quity clots. S. Condndhd itememare ofte provide ople witan incom prepoer backn german the flood of discardrded cloeses s not t set to stotop any time s. So german clothing recycler soex is working with many of the major highstreet retailers that now take e ck used clothing. This meansns the stores s can m their bubusinesses arere moe susustainae. And in t the best case scenari, companies lilike renew celelln swededen recycle t the clothesd turnhehem into a fororm of synthetic cotton. And the consumers . Theyey get voucherers in returr their old clothes to put towards yet moreew purchases from thr favori stotore host information overload thats something people compback then of course, only scscholars had a access to alle knowledge compiled in manuscriptpts and books. S. Now, thanks to the internet, a flood of digitized information has become part of daily life. Whether theyre students, tradespeople, children, or researchers, more than half of people worldwide use the internet. Reporter 400 hours of Youtube Video material a are uploaded every minute. 103 3 million n spam emails lan our mailboxes every day. 500 millllion tweetsts are posto twitter per day. Ththats 6000 twtweets per sec. Its more than any one person could process in a lifetime. A constant bombardment of stories, images, and marketing can overwhelm us, leading to information overload. But what accounts for this glut . With new information beieing produced at such a rapid rate, eveveryone feelsls pressured t o produce new content just to keep up. Newspapersrs update their onlie sites throughout the day. And audiences, too, have gone global. Anyonenean make a a video and upload it. And the number of news and medi. Too much information, too many choices. Many respond in one of two ways. We can become overstimulated, addicted to the constant flow of information and new input. Our streress levels rise, and e worry we might overlook Something Interesting or importrtant. Others go numb, lose interest in the informatation, and succu to the cocolorful flow w of imas. Jan when were stressed we become forgetful and lose focus. What i find woworrying is the polarizing effect, where we see everything as black and white. Were quicker to perceive a situation as threatening. When were overwhehelmed, wee more likely to go on the attack. Reporter psychiatrist Jan Kalbitzer conducts research at the center for internet and Mental Health at the Charite University hospital in berlin. Jan people have a need for information. But ththis glut, the way the mea is always blaring the alarm, makes us afraid, even of the real world. We live in a virtual reality. Wewe might be walking througha safe city, but the constant flood of scary headlines makes us afraid. Reporter were pummeled with opinions, claims, and coununterclaims. S. It can bececome difficult to distinguish h between real nes opinioand fafa. S, and and d theres lilittle to helpe sensnse of the chahaos. Searchch engines donont necessy give us the best rults, but the reresults promoted by paid advertisers. Jajan its a big problem when e internet is entirely controlled by money. That has to stop. As a society, we need to step in, both politically and as individuals. Reporter the internet affects our brain, maybe even rewiring it. Some studies have shown that constant multitasking on ouor compututers and devivices overs our prefrontal cortex. Another study has shown that the area of the brain responsible for Thumb Movement is largernn people w who u a smartphe. So we cant just say the internet is dumbing us down. Jan when humans began using their opposable thumbs and using tools, it changed their brain structure. We began walking more upright, so that we could better use our hands. Our brain always has to adapt to new conditions. It would be terrible if it couldnt. Reporter so how do we adapt to this new reality . Some radically limit their exposure. Others try to approach the online information glut in healthier ways. But theres no getting around it nowadays, Everyone Needs media literacy. Host more than 821 Million People on our planet suffer from starvation. One in nine of us doesesnt hae enough to eat. And yet, a third of food worldwide is wasted. North america, australia, and new w zealand top the list of fd wasters. In second place, europe. Meanwhile, in subsaharan africa, generally, very little food is wasted. But south africa is a clear exception. Reporter tatjana von bormann pays regular visits to the garbage dumps around cape town. She has studied the wasteful lifestyle of many south africans and says change is urgently needed. Every year, the visserhok landfill alone receieives thousands of tons of food waste. It comes from restaurants, factories, and local farms. Tatjana we estimate that a third of food is dumped in south africa every year. This has significant ecological impacts because all that foodd has compounded water and energy, and from a Climate Change perspective, in the landfill it emits harmful greenhouse gasas, both methahane and c carbon dio. In south africa, up to 12 million pepeople dont know whe their next meal is coming from, and yet were wasting 10 million tons of food every year. Reporter rudolf roscher has spent years looking at ways of reducing food waste here in the western cape. He works for the Regional Department of agriculture. Von bormann has come to visit one of his projects, which she believes could provide a model for the rest of the country. Roscher has managed to persuade farmers to donate their food surplus instead of plowing it back into the ground. Lizette kloppers farm is the collection point. Seven local farmers bring their excess produce here. Lizette you should see ththe quality. Anything, even if there is a little mark on it, or a spot or something. No, thats not good enoughgh. They want to deliver the best. So, yes, they want to give. Reporter sometimes, several tons of food arrive here in a single day. Governmentsponsored vehicles then transport it to soup kitchens in nearby townships like avian park, which is home to 20,000 people. Poverty is rife here, as are Gang Violence and drug crime, and its often the children who suffer most. Lena today were cooking a dish with pumpkin, potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables. Then well serve it with rice. Thats what were giving the children today. Reporter by the time the soup kitchen opens, crowds of children are already waiting. It feeds 150 of them a day, serving nearly 3000 meals a month. If it werent for the soup kitchen, those childldren wouldo hungry. The centre only caters for children, many of whom are undernourished. Most people in the township live from state benefits. The soup kitchens may be a lifesaver for some, but theyre still not the ideal solution, longterm. Tatjana food handouts are not going to put us on a sustainable trajectory. We need to look at the whole system and we need to look at levers for change to tip the system into a positive state. At wwf, were e looking at the issue of farming both on a commmmercial level, how better farming practices can be implemented, but also for smallholder farmers so that they are both environmentallyly and economically sustainable. Reporter another example in avian park shows just what smallholder farming can do. A few years ago, some of the residents teamed up with the department of agriculture to begin growing their own food. The township now has 45 food gardens, where members plant fresh vegetables for the local community. Those in need can come and collect them for free. The garden project has been running since 2015. Instead of getting paid, the members get a share of the harvest. Rudolf we initially started in avian park as the western Cape Department of agriculture to create food gardens in avian Park Community with the purpose to learn the community to make their own food, produce their own vegetables, but we soon realized that it will not be enouough to address the Food Security problem in avian park. And therefore we supplemented the fofood with donations thate get from the food surplus project that were doing with the commercial farmers in the area. Reporter major Food Retailers are now joining the initiative, too. Instead of disposing of food that has passed its sellby date, the retail chain woolworths donates it to charitable organizations that work with the poor. All the food is still within the useby date. And to ensure it remains refrigerated at all times, woolworths issues it directly from the shops cold storage room. Tatjana that has given n me grt hope for the future that we will no longer have the absurd situation of wasting a third of food and all the environmental and climate impacts that go along with that and actually Work Together through the value chain to ensure that all edible food is eaten and ideally reachehes those who need it mo. Reporter today, the unsold food is going to a homeless shelter in cape town. Its a practice that could work for the whole of south africa. In a country where 12 Million People regularly go hungry, at least a part of the surplus food as you know, we love hearing from you, so drop us a line to global3000 dw. Com, or visit us on facebook, dw global society. Bye for now. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] ruth good evening and welcome to todays meeting of the commonwealth club, the place where youre in the know. Im dr. Ruth shapiro, founder and chief executive of the center for asian philanthropy and society and d member of the commonwealth clubs board of governors and your moderator for tonight. Now its my great pleasure to introduce todays distinguished speaker, dr. Muhammad yunus, winner of the 2006 nobel peace prize, founder of gramameen bank, and author of the new bookok, a world of thre zeroes the new economics of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero net carbon. Please welcome dr. Muhammad yunus. Muhammad thank you. Thank you. Thank you