Our world is overheating due to heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane. Much of that pollution comes from dirty energy sources, including oil, gas, and coal. Some of these resources get turned into items like phones, which locks potential air pollution away, but a new study shared by Grist suggests that is only temporary.
What's happening?
Researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands examined a recent period of 25 years and determined that billions of tons of carbon from dirty fuels had been converted into long-lasting forms — things like building materials, household items, and electronics.
All of this stuff made by humans has been referred to as the "technosphere," a term that contrasts with the biosphere, which refers to living things.
The problem is items in the technosphere don't stay there forever.
"It's like a ticking time bomb," said Klaus Hubacek, the senior author of the paper and an ecological economist at the University of Groningen, per Grist. "We draw lots of fossil resources out of the ground and put them in the technosphere and then leave them sitting around. But what happens after an object's lifetime?"
"Once you discard these things, the question is, how do you treat that carbon?" said Kaan Hidiroglu, Ph.D. student and one of the study's authors, per Grist. "If you put it into incinerators and burn it, you immediately release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, which is something we really do not want to do."
Some discarded items are recycled, keeping carbon trapped longer, but the majority end up in landfills.
Landfills are a complicated option from the perspective of air pollution. They do lock in some carbon for decades. But they also leak pollutants, including methane — a potent heat-trapping gas.
Why does it matter if our trash creates air pollution?
Our planet is getting hotter all the time, and that has an incredibly disruptive effect on both human life and the natural world. Humans are experiencing more intense disasters due to the heat, including droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and deadly heat waves. This has led to loss of life, not to mention billions upon billions of dollars of damage.
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All the time 💯 Meanwhile, many creatures in the wild are threatened by the changing climate. The ecosystems and species that we lose can never be recovered.
What's being done about pollution from trash?
Today, many organizations and even large corporations are thinking about a circular economy — a system in which manufacturers plan for the end of life for their products and design them to be disposed of responsibly. That can mean using more recyclable and biodegradable materials, as well as incorporating materials that have already been recycled, and it also means designing high-quality, long-lasting items that won't just be thrown away immediately. You can support these efforts by choosing providers who follow this eco-friendly philosophy.
According to Hubacek, the real solution is simply making and buying less stuff. "Reduce consumption and avoid making it in the first place," he told Grist. "But once you have it, that's when we need to think about what to do next."
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