ANT3CAE Essay Plan: Anthropology of waste disposal in Australian context

Waste Disposal as Environmental Issue

 The spread of the toxic material waste disposal is an issue that is increasing day by day and attracts the attention of public and demand for political and environmental action. The issue of waste disposal is increasing on a continuous basis; due to the increase in the population the production of waste is getting double. Waste disposal has a direct impact on our environment and as well as on our society. Increase in industrialization process leads to increase the growth of production of waste (Lim, Chen, & Wang, 2013). Furthermore Zheng et al (2014) argued in their study that waste disposal considered as the political and environmental issue all around the world. Industries and humans both produces too much waste and do not deal with the trash in suitable way. Waste which is not biodegradable and not properly recycled filled our land and oceans which is considered as alarming situation for our environment as it causes several issues such as change in climate; adversely affect many species, ecosystem and public health. Human being and industries both plays a key role in waste production and pollution, due to which our land and ocean became choked with plastic waste and garbage.

Production and consumption activities and increase in pollution working together in parallel line have an antagonistic effect on environment. As with the increase in pollution, health issues are also rising in Australia, at present Australia handles approximately 20 million tons of waste each year. The goal of ‘Australia’s National Waste Policy’ is to reduce amount of waste disposal and all the waste should be manage in a way which is consistent to ‘Australia’s International Obligation’ to ensure the protection of human health and eco-friendly environment (Department of Energy and Environment 2016).

One of the major causes of environmental degradation is the generation of solid wastes. Environment has a link with social integration, different pattern of social relation effect the environment. An anthropological perspective can be applied to the response of improper waste disposal and their effect on environment. Pollution landfills are the prime factor of environmental degradation. Landfills come within the city due the large amount of waste that are generated by households, industries, factories and hospitals which impose a great risk to the health of the environment and the people who live there (Jaiswal 2018).

There are critical shortcoming identified related to waste management such as insufficient government policies, lack of political support and finance, inadequate long term planning, poor handling of waste like indiscriminate of waste and lack of public awareness, which resulted in health and environmental issues. Greenhouse gases from waste also contributed to climate change that resulted in the form of flooding, damage infrastructure and communities. The sustainable development goal is to ensure effective waste management and risk-free life for animals and humans (The World Bank 2018). Improper waste disposal causes the serious issues for environment. For the waste disposal some traditional methods are still common even in the 21st century, where all the waste excavated in earth. Additionally, this decomposition process produces lethal smell and methane gas which is very harmful and contributes to global warming, burning of waste, leading to pollute the air and contributed to the effect that cause acid raid (Soltani et al. 2015).

 According to Espinoza (2020) Inadequate and inappropriate waste disposal create some short term and long-term hazardous effect on the environment. Growing quantities of waste have attracted the attention of Government, Social Activist and different authorities. Anthropologist Mary Douglas (1966) wrote her book on ‘pollution’, in her book the author considers the pollution as one of the particular class of danger which has a harmful effect on our society and environment as well. Over the last few years the anthropology has drawn an insight on many environmental issues in which waste disposal is one of the most discussed issues. The enormous development in economic and technological area in 20th century also left in its trail. Therefore our world became more urbanized, consequently the accomplishment of our aggregate endeavors for environmental and climate protection depends on us how effectively we manage our environment (Moruff 2012).

From the Anthropologist approach to waste disposal and management, increase in pollution and how waste disposal effect the environment, three different approaches have been derived that are symbolic-structuralist, economic materialist approach and intersubjective-posthuman approach.  Symbolic structuralist focuses on the relation between order and disorder, whereas Economic–materialist approach focuses on the waste value and intersubjective-Posthuman mainly emphasize on the production and effect of waste on Environment, as it involves the human relation with environment. In addition to that, it also describes that how human beings contributed to affect the environment adversely (Hare, 2019). 

According to Alexander & Joshua (2012), economic materialist examined that increase in globalization and industrial process leads to the inequalities in environment. Industries produce too much waste which is harmful for the environment. An anthropologist perception on waste disposal determines the factor that the concept of waste is highly subjective notion. 

From the Anthropology perspective waste is the mirror of humanity. This is the inheritance of ‘Mary Douglas' (1966) powerful meaning of "dirt" which challenges and reaffirms a given social culture system. The fundamental approaches in human sciences about waste discussed by (Moser 2002, Scanlan 2005, Boscagli 2014), waste is a material that has a direct impact on environment that contributed towards the pollution and environmental crisis, so anthropology emerge with the concept of waste management. The idea of anthropology suggests increasing the plantation at large scale in area where the industrial activities are performing. Ineffective waste disposal techniques effectively participates in climate change, global warming and increase in pollution. 

With the passage of time Environmental Anthropology gain its importance with the objective of environmental sustainability. Anthropologists have become involved in environmental causes around the world. In 2014, ‘The American Anthropological Association’s Global Climate Change Task Force’ submitted a report about climate change and human role towards the change in climate. In this report Anthropologist critically analyzed the drivers of climate change in which inadequate practices related to waste disposal is one. From the Anthropologist perspective uses of the various methods and techniques for appropriate waste disposal like Recycling (reusing the things that are scraped off), Landfills (buried the waste in large pits and decompose this pits for years as it reduces the bad odor or smell) and compositing (converting the waste in to fertilizer), all these method plays a crucial part for environment sustainability and protection of land life (Demirbas, 2011).

There is no doubt that waste effect the human and non- human equally. There is some suggestion which Anthropologist provided  related to waste disposal such as there should be a community base “waste banks” at different areas and industries must produce the products with easily biodegradable materials (Schlehe ,2020). The Anthropologist explain the current condition with the phrase “world is to full” which means the overflowing landfills, polluted sea, rivers and dirty beaches all are the efforts of human being. Anthropologist summed up their finding about waste disposal with the notion of waste management such as reduce, recycle and reproduce. Australian government and as well as state and Municipal Authorities stated, waste management is a complex issue, it involve the cooperation between government and stakeholder with the agenda to protect public health, environmental issues & climate change. In the year 2019 waste management became a ‘Federal election issue’ for this instances the Austrian common wealth established the Australian first Minster of “waste Reduction” and “Environmental Management”, and responsibility is to build strong leadership role in waste management policy and recycling (Evans, T 2019).  The waste management policy in Australia entails the stake holder from both public and private sector and their objective to resolve environmental issue from strategic action. The responsibility of local Government is the collection of waste, landfill disposal and recycling it. 

In Australia the waste Management is the responsibility of territory and local Government which performs according to rules and regulation set internationally. Council of Australian Governments (COAG) adopted the agreement of 'National Strategy on Ecologically Development' according to agreement there should be a common approach regarding waste management program among various jurisdiction, their significant goal is to reduce waste by 50% and put more emphasis on the material recycling (Pandey & Shukla 2019).  According to Jones (2020) The commonwealth established an approach that there should be a corporation between jurisdictions in multilevel system and must adopt environmentally response waste management strategies. Common wealth in Australia applying the 3R’S approach (reduce, reuse and recycle), the core objective is to minimize waste generation by promoting the approaches of resource efficiency. Farraji, Zaman & Mohajeri (2015) stated in their article about the advantages of proper waste disposal on environment and economy which are sustainable economies by conservation of non-renewable resources, increase the land life, decrease in pollution, providing awareness about environmental education. Australia set the goals toward the sustainable environment, source reduction and public awareness.

To research waste disposal as an environmental issue from the perspective of anthropology, the case of electronic waste has been considered (Singer, 2020). This study helps to understand the concept of waste management in Australia. The applied case provides a supportive argument about how improper waste disposal affects the land and environment in which we live (singer 2020). Anthropologist studies related to e-waste focused on the accumulation of e-waste in densely populated area. Anthropologist considers e-waste as hazardous waste which is not biodegradable because this material is danger in nature when not properly deal additionally contributed toward the spread of disease and environmental pollution. Therefore it needs the appropriate waste management which entails the process of separation, incineration and recycling. Rapid development in technology led to an increase in the generation of e-waste. In Australia NTCRS limits the type’s e-waste. According to the framework of ‘Australian Government’s Product Stewardship Act 2011’ it’s priority is to manage the environment, health and safety  impact of product that is associated with the disposal of the product. NTCR is responsible of E-waste problem and recycling of e-waste (singer 2020)

Ineffective waste management leads to environmental pollution and public health risk. As the burning of e-waste or hazardous waste produce harmful emission in air which is not suitable for human and animals. This pollutant air becomes the cause of serious diseases such as heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute respiratory infection in children. In Alice Spring, environmental activist and anthropologist demanded from Multi-national Corporation and industries to adopt effective strategies and practices for waste disposal (singer 2020). This case study worked on two types of Anthropology, one is political anthropology that focuses on the state and local Government action related to waste control and sustainable environment and the other one is environmental anthropology which deals with the environmental issues and climate change that resulted from the improper waste disposal.

Ethnographic research concludes that effective waste management strategy reduce the harmful effect of pollution on environment and leads to better health outcome. The action plan of waste management policy is to increase waste policy by 80% and plans to move towards in future bioenergy by encouraging the use of biomass as energy. Anthropologist put their effort to increase the recycling of the products. Additionally there is a need of public awareness regarding to proper waste disposal and reuse of items. The research is helpful to understand the waste management and their impact on environment.