Putting Waste In Its Place

Timothy Gutowski, Bhavik Bakshi, Melissa Bilec, Elena Irwin, Cindy Isenhour, Dusan Sekulic, Thomas Theis, and Valerie Thomas

Introduction

The title of our project proposal, Convergence Around a Sustainable World without Waste, contains three key and somewhat malleable words that require our attention: convergence, sustainability, and waste.

Convergence is a relatively new concept intended to capture the research enterprise necessary to develop the transdisciplinary understanding and actions required to address complex challenges[1]. The challenge here, of course, is the role of waste in a sustainable world. The definition of sustainability itself has blossomed, perhaps from a fairly simple notion of intergenerational welfare contained in the Brundtland commission report, to multiple approaches, including strong sustainability, as exemplified by planetary boundaries;[2] weak sustainability, as illustrated by the UN’s Inclusive Wealth Index;[3] and a vast array of sustainability indicators, most notably the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations that are specified by 167 different targets.[4] Interestingly, waste is often not specifically called out in these approaches, e.g., it is not named in any of the SDGs, but it seems to be implied in almost all of them. In this workshop, we are interested in this relationship.

The definition of waste itself is quite broad, occupying about a quarter of a page in an old school hardbound Webster dictionary. The definitions range from pure destruction to missed opportunity. In the context of this workshop, we will focus significant attention not only on material- and energy-related resources waste, but also on their impacts. In particular, the many direct and indirect human and environmental impacts of the materials systems we employ need to be identified. We should consider this workshop as an invitation to consider waste in all of its possible forms, and in particular, questions of whether a world with waste is sustainable and the implications of waste for sustainability at multiple scales—from local communities to global supply chains. We should consider both the incremental as well as the transformative changes that are needed for our waste systems to become sustainable, and how various disciplines need to intersect and converge to meet this goal.

One specific interpretation of waste is the implication of a lost opportunity, or a chance for greater efficiency. Greater efficiency could be interpreted as everything in its proper place, at the proper time, at the proper value— but the definition of “proper” would also certainly be culturally determined and power laden.  Nonetheless, calls for greater efficiency in any endeavor have wide appeal[5]. They may help simplify complex problems and clarify the issues, but simplification may also lead to unintended consequences. Here we highlight two.

First, greater efficiency in one dimension can lead to unintended effects in another dimension. Sometimes referred to as “rebound effects,” there are many variants. A common example is the consumption of energy resources for lighting: greater efficiency in lighting from technological innovations has led to lower costs and many new markets, which has increased the long-run consumption of lighting by several hundred-fold.[6]  Efficiency can also have geographical dimensions when the effort to become more efficient in one locale results in the shifting of inefficiencies into other, often less powerful, geographical space.

Second, uncertainty can imply potential trade-offs between efficiency and resilience. The installation of more efficient systems may increase interconnectedness which can have both positive and negative effects. In most cases, these calls have led to significant improvements, followed by an exposure to still new threats, not usually anticipated, that can then doom the efficient system. That is, observations over many different types of systems suggests a correlation between increased efficiency and a lack of resilience. When the efficient system is then challenged by a disruptive event, it can fail. Observations from several different domains could be used to make this point, including for example large ecological systems; large mono-culture plantings would be one example, also see Panarchy[7] which generalizes the rise and fall (and recovery) of ecological systems, and supplies many examples. Large industrial systems also provide examples, see for example the discussion on Henry Ford’s River Rouge plant in “From the American System to Mass Production 1800 – 1932”[8]. Here we see the culmination of Ford’s emphasis on efficiency and control (with 120 miles of conveyors) only to be blind-sided by GM’s flexible marketing and financing approach. The Toyota Production System was also built based on a strong emphasis on efficiency, but also with an emphasis on flexibility, and to this day endures. A final example worth mention is the capitalist business model dominant in the United States today. This system, long pursued in the name of market efficiency and shareholder value, has resulted in significant social consequences, most notably an eroding social welfare system,  growing income gaps, and fewer benefits for workers[9],[10]. This strikes us as a particularly good example of how pursuing the elimination of one kind of waste can lead to yet a different kind of waste. This shift of emphasis, if not included in the analysis, may lead to uncertain outcomes, not captured by efficiency metrics.

Moreover, defining efficiency and designing associated metrics is not an easy task. Broadly used definitions of efficiency (e.g. energy intensity) are dependent on the scale of the system considered. A black box type of compounded metrics with lumped contributing entities is void of transparency and suffers from not specified limits of performance.

We would do well to keep in mind that at its base, the term waste is a value judgment that will reflect the norms and the conditions of the persons making that decision. The danger of pursuing a “world without waste” in the name of sustainability, is that it may invite a too narrow a definition of waste that does not properly value the many dimensions of this problem.

At the same time, there will likely be certain kinds of waste, particularly those that are most harmful upon which we can build a strong consensus and that will require our full attention. With these caveats in mind we invite you to participate in this workshop.

Notes

[1] According to  https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/convergence/index.jsp…”Convergence research is a means of solving vexing research problems, in particular, complex problems focusing on societal needs. It entails integrating knowledge, methods, and expertise from different disciplines and forming novel frameworks to catalyze scientific discovery and innovation.”

[2] Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S.E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E.M., Biggs, R., Carpenter, S.R., De Vries, W., De Wit, C.A. and Folke, C., 2015. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science347(6223).

[3] https://www.unep.org/resources/report/inclusive-wealth-report-2018

[4] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

[5] Here we are speaking very generally and acknowledge that there are many ways to measure efficiency including various thermodynamics expressions of first and second law efficiency, economic efficiency, and various eco-efficiency measures.

[6] Fouquet, R, P.J.G. Pearson. The Long Run Demand for Lighting: Elasticities and Rebound Effects in Different Phases of Economic Development. Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 83–100.

[7] Lance H. Gunderson and C.S. Hollings eds, Panarchy, Island Press 2002

[8] David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production 1800 – 1932, Johns Hopkins University Press 1984

[9] Rebecca Henderson, Reimaging Capitalism in a World on Fire, PublicAffairs 2020

[10] John Cassidy, How Markets Fail, Picador, 2009