| APRIL-
SEPTEMBER 2002 |
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| Contents |
| BREAKING
NEWS |
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World
Bank Bankrolls Global Air Pollution
by Matt Wheeland |
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Zero
Waste Success at the Summit's Global Forum
by Muna Lakhani and
Ann Leonard |
| BURNING
ISSUES |
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| WAY
FORWARD |
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Fighting
Waste Burners in Canada and South Africa
by Manny Calonzo |
Sustainability:
Think Garbage is Garbage.
Think Again
by Pamela Hartigan |
| PUTTING
OUT THE FLAMES |
| GOOD
NEWS |
| BAD
NEWS |
|
NEWS
from the REGIONS |
| Citizens
Speak out Against Incineration |
| CAMPAIGN
TIPS |
Seven
Important Campaign Tips Towards
Clean Production
by Beverly Thorpe |
| RESOURCES |
| Resources |
| EVENTS |
 |
|
| ANNOUNCEMENTS |
| GAIA
Incineration Database |
| GAIA
Global Meeting 2003 |
| Welcome
to New Members!!! |
| |
GAIA
CAMPAIGNER |
Co-Editors:
Ann Leonard, Von Hernandez,
Manny Calonzo,
Contributing Writers:
Allen Chan, Ann Leonard,
Bharati Chatuverdi, Bill Sheehan,
Bobby Peek, Cancer Action New York, Dorothy Skrytek, Emma Oberg,
Eugene Conway, Fred de Baere,
Gopal Krishna, Hammad Naqi Khan,
Herlin Hsieh, Jeffer Castelo Blanco,
Junichi Sato, Linda Ambler,
Llewellyn Leonard, Manny Calonzo,
Mariana Boy Tamborell, Mark Strutt,
Matt Wheeland, Mike Ewall, Mike Schade, Morag Carter, Muna Lakhani,
Nikki Clarke, Pamela Hartigan, Pawel Gluzynski,
Phill Scott, Roel Andag, Setsuko Yamamoto, Stephen Lester, Swedi
Elongo, Von Hernandez, Zeina Al-Hajj
|
We
welcome contributions
in the form of articles, photographs, artworks, and letters to
the editors. The opinions and views expressed by the writers and
artists do not necessarily reflect the official views of GAIA.
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| WAY
FORWARD |
Sustainability:
Think Garbage is Garbage? Think Again
by
Pamela Hartigan |
Social entrepreneurs identify practical solutions to social
problems by combining innovation, resourcefulness and
opportunity. Deeply committed to generating social value,
they identify new processes, services,
products or unique ways of combining proven practice with
innovation, driving through pattern-breaking approaches
to resolve seemingly intractable problems such as those
being discussed at this Summit. Most importantly, they
act as social alchemists, converting under-utilized resources
into productive assets by working with and motivating
groups of people and communities. The term "social
entrepreneurship" refers to a distinct approach to
catalyzing social transformation that is independent of
sector or discipline. These are men and women who seize
the problems created by change as opportunities to transform
societies.
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Take,
for example, an initiative being carried out in Bangladesh
by Iftekar Enayetullah and Maqsood Sinha, founders of
the social enterprise called Waste Concern. Similar
to many growing cities in the developing world, Dhaka's
10 million inhabitants generate an ever-increasing amount
of solid waste, much exceeding the response capacity
of municipal authorities. More than half remains uncollected,
posing serious public health and environmental hazards.
The urban poor play an important role in recovering
about 15 percent of inorganic recyclable materials from
waste, but about 80 percent of the waste is organic
matter.
Sinha
and Enayetullah had an innovative idea. They knew that
in addition to the mounting garbage in the city, Bangladesh
is facing excessive loss of topsoil fertility from overuse
of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that also creep
into rivers and canals and kill the fish. Both problems,
the waste and the soil depletion, had a common solution.
By emphasizing the marketing aspect of organic waste,
turning organic garbage into a "resource,"
Waste Concern is causing a chain reaction among multiple
sectors in Bangladesh and has generated a socially transformational
response to the problem of waste management.
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Working
in partnership with communities, Waste Concern has set
in motion a process for house-to-house organic waste
collection that is then taken to community-based composting
plants to turn the waste into fertilizer. Waste Concern
arranges for fertilizer companies and small nurseries
to purchase and nationally market the compost-based
bio-fertilizers it produces. Thus, it provides jobs
for slum dwellers that collect the waste and instigates
behavioral changes in urban communities and in the waste
management industry. Waste Concern also helps address
Bangladesh's environmental problem of diminishing topsoil
fertility.
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Innovative composting initiative for slum dwellers in
Bangladesh.
Photo by Shezad Noorani, Waste Cocncern |
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Sinha,
born and raised in Dhaka, is an urban planner. Enayatullah,
also from Bangladesh, is a civil engineer. The pair
met while completing their separate research on urban
waste management and decided to work together. They
sought to convine government agencies to develop community-based
composting plants, even promising free consulting services
to support governmental efforts. But they could not
convince the authorities. Inspired by the challenges,
they founded Waste Concern.
Initially,
no local financial institution or development organization
supported their efforts. After five years of running
their demonstration program with no external support,
Enayetullah and Sinha finally convinced the Municipal
Corporation and Public Works Department to provide government
land for community composting. Moreover, based on the
project, the Government of Bangladesh for the first
time has recommended the recycling of organic waste
via composting as a viable alternative for solid waste
management.
What
elements of Waste Concern can be replicated in other
cities suffering similar problems? According to Enayetullah
and Sinha, the success of a community-based composting
program depends largely on identifying and addressing
the community's needs, while sustainability of the project
depends on involving them in the cost recovery/cost-sharing
process.
Pamela
Hartigan is Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation
for Social Entrepreneurship, Geneva. |
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