ZERO WASTE vs. LAND FILLING
Forty million tones is the amount of household rubbish in 2020 (Collins, 2003). Two hundred billion VND is the amount of money that Ho Chi Minh City’s residence for rubbish land-filling and incineration. It is really about time for a new method to reduce the huge amount of rubbish each year, to save our money, and to save our environment. That novel method is zero waste. Although both zero waste and land filling have their own advantages and disadvantages, the former method is our best choice for the clean and stable future.
In perspective of short term vision, land filling seems to exceed zero waste in term of economy and policy. On the one hand, land filling’s techniques have been developed for quite a long time, so it does not cost a huge amount of money to establish the project. Actually, most countries in the world use this method in dealing with their rubbish problem including our country, Viet Nam. On the other hand, zero waste requires not only huge investments in term of finance and techniques researches, but also a close cooperation among public, companies and governments. First, the public’s awareness is the most important factor. Second, most importantly, companies actually have to change totally their production method. For example, a company producing fruit juice stored in portable boxes has to think about new designs of their products. The fruit juice box is made from metals, papers and polymers. How can firms design the products which are easy to be taken apart or do not need taking apart to be renewed? And finally, the government has to pass the law to encourage the residences to use these products as well as to make sure all the system runs fluently. For all of these reasons, it is easy to think that land filling has many more advantages than zero waste. However, this statement is only right in short-term point of view. Furthermore, despite of the mentioned above difficulties, many countries have succeeded in the zero waste projects, for example: Canberra with 59% its rubbish recycled, Edmonton and Canada with 70% (Collins, 2003). That is why we should take into account the effectiveness of these two methods in long-term when deciding what the most suitable method is for our future.
In the perspective of long-term vision, it is zero waste which is the best choice for economic, political, and environmental concern. First, we are running out of our natural resources. Therefore, zero waste gives us a valuable opportunity to prevent the shortage of these land capital in the future because most of the resources used can be reused or recycled. This method also creates new jobs, which brings economic profit to residences. Furthermore, the success in some countries in signing up to the zero waste policies, for example, Canberra, Toronto, California, and New Zealand, is the proof for its political feasibility (Collins, 2003). The zero waste projects are chances for governments, industry and public to come together and head towards a sustained development of the economy. Finally, applying zero waste, we can avoid all additional environmental problems from other rubbish dealing methods, for example, leakages and bad smells from land filling, or the pollutants and smoke from the incineration. Thus, the zero waste project is really suitable method, especially for Vietnam because of our high residence density, and our willingness to protect our beautiful nature.
In conclusion, although the landfilling has some advantages, zero waste is absolutely the best choice we can make. This is the way to save our valuable natural resources, to create new jobs, to protect the environment. It is true to say that heading to a sustained development in the economy means applying zero waste method.
References:
Collins, J. (2003, Oct 3rd). Radical plans for waste could herald a big clean-up. The Guardian Weekly. p.25.