'A long, long way to go,' before solving global waste crisis, 'Wasteland' author says

In much of the developed world, waste is out of sight and out of mind. But what happens to our trash can have dire implications for everyone.

The world generates around 2 billion tons of municipal solid waste annually, with at least 33% of it not managed in an environmentally safe manner, according to a 2018 World Bank report. Though high-income countries only account for 16% of the world’s population, they generate about 34% of the world’s waste each year.

Plastic waste is another mounting issue: Across the globe, less than 10% of it is recycled, according to the most recent data from 2018 published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. A recent ABC News investigation tracked dozens of plastic bags placed into recycling collection bins, and many of them never making it to a recycling facility, as planned.

Journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis takes a deep dive into the global waste crisis in his new book, “Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future.” Franklin-Wallis spoke to ABC News Live's Linsey Davis about the issue and how it affects people across the globe.

LINSEY DAVIS: So waste is certainly not a glamorous topic, but why should we all be paying attention to what's happening with our trash?

OLIVER FRANKLIN-WALLIS: Well, as you said, waste is actually this gigantic problem that most of us don't think about. You know, for us, particularly in the North if you're in the U.S., you shove something in the bin, you forget about it, you don't realize that quite often, that's just the start of a very long journey for a lot of things.

You know, it might end up on a container ship and going across oceans and ending somewhere in the Global South.

So for me, I saw waste as this kind of slightly fascinating world that we never really think about, but it's also the physical side of pollution of the climate crisis that we could kind of get a hold on, even if it's sometimes a bit gross.

DAVIS: A little bit, a little bit gross, but meaningful, certainly. I want to read an excerpt from the book: “Rapids might bubble and waves may froth, but we all know, almost intuitively, that rivers are not supposed to behave like this. I scrape a finger full of foam off my sleeve, thick and weightless. Looking at it I'm immediately struck by a gut feeling, a violation -- that something is wrong.” You're writing about a river in New Delhi at this point, where chemicals are released along with untreated sewage and wastewater into the river. But you're also talking about water pollution around the world. How did we get to this point globally?

FRANKLIN-WALLIS: Well, I think you're absolutely right in what you said in your introduction, which is for a long time and in fact, for the best part of the entire 20th century, we've kind of seen waste as something that's out of sight, out of mind. You know, it's kind of is gross, so we don't like to look at it. And as a result, we have a waste management industry that kind of operates behind closed doors or off site.

We look at something like water pollution, which is a huge issue globally; regulators haven't really been thinking about this stuff, and so we have an ocean that's full of plastic and rivers full of all kinds of chemical pollutions. And it's really time that we kind of got to grips with some of these issues, because it's pretty gross out there.

DAVIS: In this book, you cover the entire world – dumps in New Delhi, e-waste making land in Ghana, toxic plastic dumping in Southeast Asia. Is there any particular community or person that is really seared into your mind as far as the problem being so egregious?

FRANKLIN-WALLIS: Waste is a huge problem around the Global South. We see some of the waste as something that's kind of almost solved. But actually globally, the recycling rate is only about 20%. We’re talking about billions of people who don't have formal waste management that you or I would take for granted.

I think one of the most powerful moments for me was, I went to Ghana in West Africa, which is where a lot of donations from thrift stores, from the UK and Europe and the U.S. and Canada end up. You know, a lot of people think that you take something to the thrift store, you're donating it, it’s something good, which it is.

But a lot of that time that waste isn't sold in stores. In fact, only between about 10% and 30% of the time does that product stay in store and stay in circulation.

So there's lots of complexities to a lot of these issues, but it's a real everyday issue for billions of people and one that we kind of need to have a really honest and open discussion with sometimes, because a lot of the time it's our waste that's ending up there.

DAVIS: How exactly does this continue to happen? I mean, you mentioned there's a history of organized crime that allows this, but is it corrupt governments, capitalism? Is there a way to stop it?

FRANKLIN-WALLIS: Well, I think that, to be honest, we take for granted that waste kind of powers our world. You know, for decades, for example, when we were importing goods from China, they were coming over on container ships and the container ships were largely going back empty.

And until some smart minds thought, actually, you know what? What is the booming Chinese economy we need? Well, it needs raw materials in the form of our trash.

There's various debates going on in U.S. state legislatures about repair, about various things that we're doing with our waste. So it does feel like this is finally the moment when we kind of have an honest conversation about, you know, what's going in the bin and where it goes afterwards.

DAVIS: While you were doing this reporting, were there any places or people you met along the way who make you feel optimistic that the world can still reverse course?

FRANKLIN-WALLIS: Sure. I would say that while there's a lot of pretty horrendous looking, you know, you showed some footage there and it does seem pretty bleak. But I was really taken by a lot of the people that I was meeting. For example, you know, I talked about fast fashion waste in Africa. I met designers there who are upcycling clothes into new designs.

We've got a long, long way to go. And a lot of the time that's kind of cutting back on some of the greenwashing and making sure that the changes are actually real. But I came away feeling positive, and I hope readers will, too.

DAVIS: Oliver Franklin-Wallis, we thank you so much. His new book, “Wasteland,” is now available wherever books are sold.

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