Irreversible time and the environment

Environmental destruction, such as the climate change and deforestation, is recognized as irreversible because it takes thousands years to recover the environment, if not forever. This is why it is important to take precautionary approach to reduce

environmental damage. The Norwegian government names 5 main principles of the Norwegian waste policies (The Norwegian Environmental Protection Agency, 2013; see p.52-53 in this thesis). Among these principles, the precautionary principle is suggested first with the definition that “where there is scientific uncertainty regarding serious or irreversible risks against health or the environment, uncertainty should not be used as a reason to postpone or omit to the implementation of precautionary measures,” (ibid:12).

In the same document, the precautionary principle and the cradle-to-grave principle are regarded as keys to finding workable solutions.

The precautionary principle is well-reflected in waste treatment policies and regulations for hazardous waste, in order to minimize damage to the environment and to people.

Hazardous waste should be treated in a safe and sound manner in Norway, according to the Pollution Control Act and the Waste Regulation. This requirement applies equally to all actors, households and businesses alike, since it is very difficult to predict with certainty what will occur from inappropriately treating hazardous waste, and how severe the damage will be. Several informants express the same concerns as follows:

“Hazardous waste is one of the most important topics considering waste, because I do not think that we know the consequences arising from it. This makes them ‘dangerous.’ We do not know what harm it generates. And there are still new products coming. We do not know how the new products interfere with other products and the environment.”

–Informant 14, Waste Norway With the policies and facilities to handle hazardous waste safely, further degradation of the environment could be minimized. Not doing so would require lots of time and financial resources to recover the environment.

86

The role of the Pollution Control Authority is based on the same logic. All facilities, plants, and places that collect, sort, and treat waste must have permits from the Authority to ensure waste handling processes are done correctly. The authority may impose special conditions to a facility if necessary, to prevent severe pollution, as per the Pollution Control Act.

The proper treatment of hazardous waste is a step toward slowing down the speed of environmental degradations in the world, caused by natural material exploitations. Also, Recycling can impede irreversible environmental destruction by offering an alternative way to use materials. Informant 12 from Elretur depicts the recycling of WEEE as

‘urban mining’, when waste becomes the raw material to produce new products, once dismantled and processed in a safe way. Through this urban mining, the informant believes that we can stop destroying rainforests in the world that have been destroyed thanks to the excavation of minerals, a component of electronic and electrical products.

“Rainforest organizations in Norway now see that there is a very tight connection between WEEE and saving the rainforest, because people destroy rainforest for to two reasons; either cutting wood or finding minerals. And of course, you can use WEEE (as resource) when you deliver the waste properly and, recycle it properly. You have ‘urban mining’ instead of mining in Indonesia. So I think that we slowly and slowly are getting closer to it.”

−Informant 12, Elretur Time is important at an institutional level, since it relates to the irreversibility of the environment. With time frames, actors are able to take proper and urgent actions to control ongoing environmental problems. Also, time is crucial since most policies or programs take time to go from the design phase, to implementation. New policies, programs and regulations are not made in a short period; an informant from BYM mentioned that it took 3 years for the Urban Ecology programs to be adopted by the city council. Political climate determines the speed, and it requires time to plan, to discuss, to approve and to carry out, following administrative and legislative procedures.

Implementing a new system definitely takes more time than planning it. Specifically, it took 15 years, from 1997 to 2012, to fully establish the current waste sorting method in all Oslo households. Since 1997, households in Oslo have been separating glass, metal,

87

cardboard and drinking cartons (C40 cities, 2012). The city council of Oslo then adopted a new waste management plan which was more sustainable in 2006 (NRK, 2006), establishing the infrastructure for this current waste sorting system. The city built the world’s largest optical sorting plant in Haraldrud, Oslo (EGE, 2015). After setting up all the infrastructures required for the new waste management, the municipality carried out pilot projects for this new waste system with an initial group of 17,000 residents in October, 2009. Gradually, this system was introduced to more and more districts in Oslo, till eventually all households in Oslo, in 2012, were able to sort metal, glass, cardboard, plastic, food, and residual waste (C40 cities, 2012).

There was some criticism that argued that the municipality could have introduced this waste sorting system earlier as stated by Informant 18 from Future in Our Hands:

“Probably it could have started bit earlier. I mean, Oslo wasn’t the first municipality to introduce the waste sorting system in Norway, there are other places that have done it a lot earlier. I do not know why they are so slow. I guess it has to do with money, this and that, planning, you know everything takes time. Everything takes time in Norway, regarding these kinds of projects. I feel like Norwegian government is always doing things a little bit too late.”

−Informant 18, Future in Our Hands Regarding this criticism, the Informants from REN (which led the waste sorting system in Oslo) replied:

“We know there are critics, saying it was late to do this. But we had to be careful, and plan well before we launched it. And we needed technical settings and a lot of money, to build new infrastructure for the system, for building the optical sorting system in Haraldrud, and distributing waste containers to all households in Oslo.”

− Informant 1, REN

“Oslo is a big city with about 600,000 residents, so we are the largest municipality in Norway. Other municipalities in Norway are smaller than us, not many people live there. So for us (REN and Oslo municipality) the situation was more complicated and difficult to start waste separation system, and it needed more time to think of all the factors (population, logistics and etc).”

– Informant 2, REN

88

The good part of the current waste management system regarding time frame, is that most actors in waste governance publish their environment report (miljørapport) annually, announcing their environmental goals and activities related to waste. The municipal government agencies, REN, EGE and BYM also publish annual reports (årsberetning), illustrating an analysis of the last year, and the evaluation of their previous goals. Informant 5 from BYM explains that:

Besides these deadlines at the policy level, it takes time to change a population’s attitude and behavior to waste. 8 of total 21 informants share this opinion during the interviews. Like the eventual change of public opinion on second-hand goods, as mentioned in section 6.1.5 by Informants 20, it may take several decades to build new attitudes and social habits towards waste.