This small environmental group prevented millions of tons of waste from being incinerated and started their nation on the path toward zero waste. The island generates half as much waste per person as the US. Today Taiwan boasts a world-beating recycling rate of 55 percent and daily waste disposal has dropped drastically from 1.14kg per person in 1998 to under 0.4kg per person by 2015. Just over 3 decades later, their actions have resulted in huge changes to their country’s attitude to recycling and waste. In 1987, a small group of 10 Taiwanese women met to talk about their concerns for the environment under the name Homemakers United. That can be avoided or greatly reduced with more re-use, recycling and avoiding waste in the first place. Landfill sites where a lot of household and business waste gets dumped give-off the powerful greenhouse gas, methane, and other emissions. Tackling waste is critical to tackling climate change. Not only is this huge amount of waste fuelling climate breakdown, it overwhelms other critical ecological life support systems too. Wealthy countries accounting for just 16 percent of the world’s population, create 34 percent of the waste, while low-income countries accounting for 9 percent of the world’s population generate just 5 percent of global waste. On average someone in North America creates 2.2kg of waste per day, compared with just over 0.5kg in South and East Asia. The amount of waste produced, per person, per year, among the world’s richest nations far outweighs amounts in all other global regions. ![]() Solid waste produced in municipal areas is expected to rise from around the 2 billion tonnes measured in 2016 to 3.4 billion in 2050. ![]() The world’s mountain of waste is growing, but one country once known as ‘Garbage Island’ has revolutionised its approach and rapidly reduced waste, offering hope that the problem could be reversed.
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