No Such Thing As ‘Away’
What we send to landfill is still within the community of life, system and processes we are part of. We may have moved something toxic from our patch, but all we have done is dump it on someone else’s patch. In the real world, the ecological world, we cannot externalise waste.
When it comes to waste, we need to reorient ourselves to Jesus’ wisdom teaching. His ‘Golden Rule’ seems utterly relevant as we focus as a hāhi on Para Kore (Zero Waste) to begin our decade on Climate Justice. “‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you,’” (Matt. 7:12) he urges us.
So, let’s not do with our waste to others what we wouldn’t want them to do to us. In the 21st century we need to extend our understanding of ‘others’ to include not only ‘other’ human communities, but ‘other’ creatures, indeed all the community of life that we are part of.
Of course, the two great commandments of Jesus as his summary of the law further sharpens this approach to waste. As we ponder love of God, and love of neighbour as self, many questions emerge in relation to waste. How can we love God if we don’t love our neighbour? How do we love our neighbour if we dump toxic waste in their neighbourhood? If the seabirds on our coastline are our neighbours, why do we burden them with our waste?
Just a few minutes of research on the internet shows how the global waste crisis is rooted in colonialism and is deeply racist. In this motu too much of our waste has become the burden of poorer and Indigenous communities. What the leafy, affluent suburbs don’t want in their own neighbourhoods they send to low-income communities.
In Ōtautahi this injustice has been recently exposed. For decades, the low-income suburb of Bromley has been the site of the much of the city’s waste management facilities. The reality of living in an already poisoned environment compounded enormously for long-suffering residents when a large fire in the waste-water treatment plant in 2021 made life intolerable for those living near the site. The plant repeatedly breached resource consent conditions.
Aotearoa New Zealand also exports toxic waste to other parts of the world. Last year Lydia Chai, a lawyer, and others, in presenting a petition to Parliament, asking for a ban on our waste plastic exports to developing countries, slated the practice as ‘waste colonialism’. South-East Asia in particular, has been the recipient of vast amounts of our waste plastic.
Lydia Chai, spoke passionately about how her hometown in Malaysia has become a site for illegally dumped and burnt waste. It has created a toxic and dangerous environment for locals. There is no adequate infrastructure to process the mountains of waste arriving. Dump and burn sites are close to schools and hospitals. Cancer and asthma rates have suddenly increased six-fold.
What we do with our waste is a life and death matter. It is a justice matter.
It calls into question our commitment to the wellbeing of others and our planet. We cannot externalise our waste; we can only reduce it.
This springtime as you have your spring clean think carefully about how you dispose of things. Seek first, to repurpose. Don’t just make your rubbish someone else’s problem.
Take greater responsibility for it. Shun plastic! Then think also about the kinds of things you buy, whether you really need them, and the importance of downsizing. Lobby to end waste colonialism.
