Transcripts For BBCNEWS Burn It Or Bury It What To Do... 202

BBCNEWS Burn It Or Bury It What To Do... May 2, 2020

Their mission is to highlight the amount of rubbish being dumped on their doorstep, on pa raguays largest landfill. Im lucia blasco and im travelling in europe and south america to discover two very different ways of dealing with our waste. From burying it in the ground, to burning it for energy, and meeting people whose livelihoods depend on what we throw away. Those campaigning for change. Those educating the next generation. We are learning here how to separate. And those with a vision for a more sustainable future. We need to take responsibility of the only planet we live in. We need to be able to look our children in the eyes in the future and say that we did what we thought was right. What should we do with our waste burn it or bury it . Asuncion, founded in the 16th century, capital city of paraguay. The economy is growing, slowly, and infrastructure is improving. But in asuncion, many roads are in poor condition. Heavy rains earlier this year led to an outbreak of dengue, an Infectious Disease spread by mosquitoes attracted to stagnant water and waste. According to the un, one third of the rubbish left on asuncions streets isnt collected and ends up in urban streams, posing a serious threat to human health. Im joining cynthia and herfamily for breakfast before school. Cynthias mum inocencia is making cocido, a traditional drink made with leaves from the mate plant. Im here because i want to find out what they do with their Household Waste. But what about separating the packaging . Once a week, inocencia takes the familys rubbish to the end of the street. She trusts that it will be picked up by the citys garbage trucks. Every year on planet earth, we produce more than two billion tonnes of solid waste. High Income Countries make upjust 16 of the worlds population but are responsible for more than a third of the worlds waste. And if everyone consumed as much as the richest countries do, wed need up to five planets to absorb all our waste. Today, of all the waste we produce, only 13. 5 is recycled. The rest is buried in the ground, thrown in the ocean or burned. Cateura, on the banks of the paraguay river. Here, 900 tonnes of rubbish is added to the mountain of trash every day. And combing through the rubbish as it arrives is an army of freelance pickers called gancheros. Carlos alberto bogarin started working on the landfill when he was 18. He and 600 other gancheros play a vital role in recovering material that can be recycled. Anything they find, they can keep and sell. Is that enough to make a life . The company that manages the landfill is building new facilities where the gancheros can work more safely. And in the long term, it wants to close the landfill and transform it into a park putting the gancheros livelihoods in doubt. Like many others, carlos and his family have made their home on the edge of the landfill. Cateura is a city within a city. Children and adults live and work side by side with waste. The community is affected by Illegal Dumping that goes on outside the landfills gates. To find out more, im meeting environmental consultant laura gamara. A landfill is more complicated than just chucking garbage into a hole in the ground. Here is how it should be done. The bottom and sides are lined with half a metre of clay and sand, followed by a flexible membrane. As rainwater filters through the waste, it becomes contaminated, so pipes at the bottom pump it out. As more waste is added, it should be compacted and covered frequently with several inches of soil. And at the end of its life, the landfill should be closed with a cover of clay, sand and topsoil. Pipes collect dangerous methane gas, which can then be used to generate electricity. Enrique ortuoste runs empo, the private company that manages the landfill on behalf of the municipality. I put to him that many people see the landfill as a source of pollution, saying it leaches contaminated liquid into surrounding areas. Well, the beginning, thats not true. The leaching that is leaking is the leaching from about 25 to 30 illegal landfills that are around cateura landfill. We have a system of treatment and our system is a system of evaporation and recirculation. So there is no leaking absolutely from our landfill to any area. So you have about 1,000 tonnes of waste per day that is not collected from the metropolitan area of asuncion. And thats the main problem of the waste here. Its not the waste that is in the landfill its the waste that is not on the landfill, because those 1,000 tonnes are thrown in rivers, are burned or thrown in these illegal landfills. And who is responsible for how this is managed . The responsible are all the 2a municipalities that compose the metropolitan area of asuncion. But we still have a cultural problem, that we cannot achieve that our population throws the garbage in the waste can. So if we cant even get that done. Imagine if we can convince the citizens responsible to separate. So the first challenge for me is that 100 of all the waste generated in the country gets to authorised landfills. Then we can go to another stage. Sorry to be so pessimistic but after 15 years of this business, i became more realistic. Alejandra kemper is an environmental expert at the United Nations Development Programme in paraguay. The idea is to promote the three rs which is to reduce, re use and recycle. So, actually, everyone is trying to promote the first r, which is to reduce origin, which means, actually, that we produce less waste. And then if we cannot reduce, then we try to re use that waste that we have generated, and then the next step is to recycle or to give it another type of treatment. Then whatever cannot be recycled or reused, then has to be disposed of in landfills. I think education and awareness raising is the key. So if we start. If we start raising awareness in children especially, and everyone, you know, but children have. Have fresher minds and they absorb, you know, everything, all the positive things that you can teach them, and through them, you get to their parents. Im off to see how the uns Education Programme works in practice. Hola. We are learning here how to separate. We have three different containers. The kids need to run really fast to leave each thing in a different container. So i am in the green team. This un programme is a start, and the government also has a National Plan for developing a more sustainable environment over the next ten years. They cheer favio chavez came to asuncion to work they cheer. Favio chavez came to asuncion to work as an environmental engineer and he started the recycled orchestra in 2006. Nicolas gomez and William Wilson work with favio making instruments. They visit the landfill often and have mastered the art of turning a baking tray into a violin and an old x ray into the skin for a drum. Orchestra plays. Im treated to another private performance before i continue myjourney to ask the question. What should we do with our waste . Welcome to linkoping in sweden. Im here because i want to know something about what they do with their waste, but lets see a bit more about the city first. And im going to meet maria, a tourist guide. Hi, maria, how are you doing today . Oh, im excellent, nice to see you thank you lets see more about your city, huh . Yes, lets do that. This is the Central Place of linkopin the Central Square stora torget. Uhhuh. And here are some magnificent buildings. Theyre from, like, the 1800s. With the buses . Yeah. We are just seen them passing by. Is there Something Special about them . Well, i would definitely say so because all our public transport is fuelled by biogas. When you show the tourists your city, do you tell them about the sustainability . Yes, we do. We do that a lot, actually, and its also because we feel that we can spread this, you know, to the rest of the world, by doing it. But i think, like, in sweden, weve lived very close to nature, since we were young. Were sort of unified with nature. We have a lot of young people here, theyre well educated. Theyre very engaged in the sustainable living, i would say, the environment, all the environmental issues. Lydia halldorf and christina eveborn run babbettes coffee shop. Here is a cookie called ricciarelli and then we have cinnamon bun and a cardamom bun. And heres a remake cake. So, when we have cinnamon buns and cardamom buns left over, we grind them down and it becomes a very flavourful cake. It tastes a lot of cardamom and it has a very rich flavour. We try to reduce our waste as much as we can. We have this cooperation with our local grocery store. We contacted them a year ago and asked if we could take care of their waste, their veggies and foods that they would throw away. Its a complicated way of cooking but a more creative way. It demands more of our staff. Why is this so important for you . If we actually do believe in science and actually do believe that this Climate Crisis is for real, we need to do what is possible in every way. Look at the big picture and the small details and what we can do to change. Yeah, we need to be able to look our children in the eyes in the future and say that we did what we thought was right. But what really makes linkoping a standout as a city of sustainability is the way its powered. Which kind of waste can we see here . What you see here is mostly Household Waste, from households in sweden and. There we have a trailer from norway. From norway . Yeah, and also from the uk. We also see the crane up there that is taking the waste and dropping it into the boiler. Can you show me the rest of the process . Lets have a look. Come on in sweden, most Household Waste is sorted and any reusable material is saved to be recycled. This is called material recycling. Whats left over is the waste fuelling this incinerator at 800 degree celsius. This is Energy Recycling. If you look upon waste as garbage, then your next question is, how can i get rid of it . If you look upon waste as a resource, the next question is, how can i create as much value as possible out of it . The problem we have is that in the european union, we have 140 Million Tonnes of waste that yearly ends up on landfill. That is the problem. Material that should be material recycled and energy recycled. Every year, 600,000 tonnes of Household Waste arrives by truck and is dropped by a giant crane into a boiler. Here, its incinerated and the resulting energy heats the steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity for the city. But what makes this plant different is that energy from the hot gasses is harnessed to run linkopings district heating system. This keeps 90 of the citys houses warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Finally, ash from the furnace is collected and used as a construction material. But not everyone in sweden is happy with the idea of importing and burning waste. Critics say that that incineration undermines recycling policy and could lead to an increase in plastic production. And there is no escaping the fact that this plant does release some harmful gases into the atmosphere. The amount of dioxins that come out from this plant is very, very little. Its measured in nanograms and the amounts of dioxin that comes into the plant is measured in kilograms. This year, the swedish government has introduced a tax on power plants that incinerate waste, with the aim of encouraging more material recycling. We dont want to burn plastics. We want that the plastics should be material recycled. But thats counter productive for your business because the ultimate goal for circular economy is zero waste. We think that we always will have material that is so worn out that it cant be new material or its toxic or its contaminated with diseases that Energy Recycling is the best thing to do. Why is this so important for you . I have children. This is important for me because its about my childrens future. We need to take responsibility of the only planet we live in. Less than a mile away from the power plant, at folkungaskolan secondary school, im joining peder palmstiernas science class, where13 year olds are learning about recycling. I show them the performance from the recycled 0rchestra that i recorded in paraguay. Lessons about climate and environment start in preschool, so its not surprising that in sweden 93 of glass and 47 of all plastic is recycled and half of all Household Waste is turned into energy. I never thought of making, like, waste, like, instruments. Its a really cool thing that people actually thought of. So do you think that everyone in the world recycles . No, no. No. And do you think even if not everyone recycles, is it important that you do . Yes. Yes, its very important. You can inspire other people to do it. And to complete the circle, the class sends a message back to the orchestra in paraguay. Hola thank you from asuncions highest point, the scale of the cateura landfill comes into focus. There is no simple answer to what to do with our waste if we should bury it or burn it. Clearly, it would be better not to create mountains of rubbish in the first place. At least its been inspiring to see how the next generation understands the part they play and that there are solutions to turning our waste into energy and even beautiful music. Skies have threatened rather than deliberate many showers today. The garden has been the place to be. High pressure tomorrow in control for much of the uk, if you scherer is breaking out. A greater chance tomorrow catching one than today. This one is worth the south west of england will produce patchy rain in some places. Into the increases as the weather front gets closer. Where we have seen some showers today across northern and eastern scotland, they will slowly fade as we get in to the night. For most of the nae is dry with clear spells. Temperatures fall a little lower than this in more rural spots, but most of us just about avoid a prose going into the morning. Sunday will start dry with a pyramid of centring around, but cloud is going and some showers will break out. Towards northern and eastern scotland, Northern Ireland, northern england, specialist of the pennines, will ta ke specialist of the pennines, will take some time, but to other places. A lot of cloud today. Temperatures in mid for most of us. It will feel colder in scotland. Tomorrow with the showers, especially in the north and east, will continue in the evening. 0n the sunday night, rain across parts of yorkshire and lincolnshire, which will gradually clear on monday, just leaving if you showers. As most leases on monday will be dry, make sure cloud and sunny spells around, the wind willjust start sure cloud and sunny spells around, the wind will just start to sure cloud and sunny spells around, the wind willjust start to pick up across parts of england and wales coming in from the east. That will kill things particularly across eastern counties. As we get be on monday to tuesday, that whether front, but the system that will cool things particularly across eastern counties. Brings the chance of rain in south western england and south wales on tuesday. Drier on wednesday. Throughout the week for much of scotland and Northern Ireland is looking dry with a mix of cloud and subject. Starting the week with a bit of rain, from mid week on looking dry. This is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. Ministers in the uk look at proposals to get the economy restarted, including easing some measures of the lockdown. In spain, the country has begun to ease its Strict Lockdown rules. Adults have been enjoying their first outdoor exercise in seven weeks. Rolls royce prepares to cut thousands ofjobs due to coronavirus. A decision on the exact number will be made by the end of the month. The uk government pledges over £76 million to the most vulnerable in society during the pandemic. This funding will help charities, support survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. It will support Vulnerable Children and their families. And it will support victims of modern

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