NO ONE looking at the state of Earth in 2022 can be in any doubt that we are facing three grave environmental crises. The climate emergency is well-established; an appreciation of the disastrous scale of biodiversity loss is growing; and our pollution of air, soil and water is becoming recognised as an existential risk.
What is perhaps lacking is an awareness of how interlinked these crises are. As a result, solutions tend to be piecemeal: targets to increase renewable energy or electric vehicle uptake; campaigns to encourage greener eating; bans on plastic straws. Sometimes, they can even be counterproductive, as with creating space for biofuel crops, which can displace food production and increase deforestation.
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A key theme links all three crises: waste. The carbon dioxide at the root of global warming is a waste gas. The seas are poisoned by plastic and other waste materials. We clear forests, among other things, to grow more food 鈥� a third of which goes to waste.
A shocking statistic lies at the heart of our special report on our material world. Of the 100-odd billion tonnes of stuff that humans use each year, barely 10 per cent is recycled. That makes plain how far a comprehensive war on waste can go to tackling all three environmental crises simultaneously.
鈥淎 comprehensive war on waste can tackle three environmental crises simultaneously鈥�
This means far more than just better recycling. It requires moving away from a 鈥渢ake, make, dispose鈥� mindset, towards a more circular one. It means redesigning the material world so that when goods reach the end of their useful lives, they can be reused or recycled, or even restore the environment from which they were taken.
This implies huge changes to the way economies operate. A rare few countries, notably France, should be commended for ushering in bold laws to limit waste. Companies are increasingly on board too, seeing an uplift for their bottom line if they can reduce the amount of virgin material they use.
But the ideas at the heart of a circular economy aren鈥檛 as widely discussed as they should be. That must change. This opportunity to tackle our environmental problems in a holistic way is one we shouldn鈥檛 allow to go to waste.