The 12th Eco-generation Environmental Essay Competition:
Beat air pollution

Alexander Senatorov (Russia)
Eco-generation Prize

«Each generation of doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. But it is even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself» , these words were said by Albert Camus more than half a century ago. He lived in a time when the change of the world was not just a dream of enthusiasts, it was a realizable ambition of the most courageous representatives of humanity. The second half of the 20th century was characterized by the most rapid economic growth in history, the creation of the Internet. Previous generations have changed our world, but this was not the final step towards happiness and prosperity. Any rapid development requires the swift adaptation of the world to new conditions. They created these conditions, and the task of our generation is to develop means to mitigate the disastrous consequences of an economic breakthrough faster than they destroy our world.
In this essay, I want to raise the question of such source of air pollution as waste, where the garbage should go from the consumer to minimize the negative impact, and what practices are already used today or will be used to solve this problem.
It is difficult to imagine a country the size of Switzerland , consisting entirely of garbage. In part, it already exists - this is 4 million hectares of garbage in my home country, the Russian Federation . The total landfill area here is increasing every year by 0.4 million hectares, which is equivalent to four times the size of Berlin . In 2018, children living in the vicinity of toxic landfills were hospitalized , and Muscovites were advised «to reduce the time spent outside, close their windows and switch on their air conditioners and air filters» .
Garbage can not only be buried, but also burned, nevertheless, the situation with the environment will not be better. Residents of the city of Ísafjörður in Iceland built an incinerator near the city, which resulted in the release of toxic dioxides and other chemicals into the air . Farmers faced problems in the form of dying cattle, and city residents began to have serious health problems. Considering that only 4000 people live in Ísafjörður, it’s hard to imagine what happens to cities with a higher volume of burning waste.
Humanity knows three ways to deal with garbage, two of which are described above. Before turning to the third, that is, recycling of garbage, it is necessary to pay attention to what the state or public organizations can do in the fight against today's landfills, incinerators and excessive pollution.
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Staten Island in New York was not the best place for an evening stroll, because there was the Fresh Kills landfill, with an area of 1,260 football fields . Up to 29 thousand tons of garbage were brought there every day , and the highest mounds reached 200 meters . Almost 20 years ago city authorities began planning to create a public park at this place three times more than Central Park in Manhattan. Today, there are flowering meadows and clear rivers, football fields, horse riding and so forth . This is not the only example of a landfill being turned into a public space. According to the same scenario, Ariel Sharon Park is being created in Israel, the same size as Freshkills Park, it will be fully opened by 2020 .
Active actions to save the environment are also taken by public organizations. In 2015, at the call of Greenpeace, more than 30 thousand residents of St. Petersburg sent letters to the Governor of the city to stop the construction of a new incinerator on the outskirts of the city, after which the construction was frozen .
Thus, it can be concluded that the society implements projects aimed at avoiding the most environmentally harmful ways to solve the problem with waste. Landfills and incinerators can disappear from our maps if the state will correct the problems that citizens and public organizations discover in time. Simultaneously with the correction of already committed "mistakes", many countries today continue to build plants to combat garbage, using a completely different approach - recycling.
The Swedish recycling system is a good example of how to solve the problem of waste on a national scale once and for all. In addition to a system of eleven different types of waste for sorting and a staggering 99% of recyclable waste, Sweden has implemented a waste-to-energy approach, which has revealed the economic benefits of importing waste from neighbouring countries and converting it into energy .
The main catalyst for change at any time were technologies. Garbage processing is one of the areas where robotic solutions have been actively introduced in recent years. For example, a "smart" garbage can created by CleanRobotics. Artificial intelligence provides automatic sorting of any garbage, which greatly facilitates the process of collecting different types of garbage and increases the income from recycling .
Thus, three main areas of sustainable action for waste management can be identified. Eliminate today's nature destroyers, landfills and incinerators in order to reduce their harmful impact on the environment. Popularization and development of waste recycling ideas, construction of new recycling centers and provide conditions for separate waste collection for safe adaptation to increasing consumption. Finally, the introduction of technologies that will increase the positive effects of the previous two types of interaction with waste and make the fight against garbage more profitable and less time-consuming.
In my room there is a huge copy of "International Flag of the Planet Earth", created by the Swedish artist Oskar Pernefeldt . For me, this is a symbol of unification, an opportunity to remind that we all live on the same planet, where nature does not determine the state borders. Today I want to see how all people and commercial companies in the world develop a sense of social responsibility and the state implementing projects to turn our world into a safer and cleaner place.