Garbage Crisis: A Global Challenge for Engineers

Randika Jayasinghe · Usman Mushtaq · Toni Smythe · Caroline Baillie

Jun 2022 · Springer Nature

About this ebook

This book will focus on "Waste Management," a serious global issue and engineers' responsibility towards finding better solutions for its sustainable management. Solid waste management is one of the major environmental burdens in both developed and developing countries alike. An alarming rate of solid waste generation trends can be seen as a result of globalization, industrialization, and rapid economic development. However, low-income and marginalized sectors in society suffer most from the unfavorable conditions deriving from poor waste management. Solid waste management is not a mere technical challenge. The environmental impact, socio-economic, cultural, institutional, legal, and political aspects are fundamental in planning, designing, and maintaining a sustainable waste management system in any country. Engineers have a major role to play in designing proper systems that integrate stakeholders, waste system elements, and sustainability aspects of waste management. This book is part of a focused collection from a project on Engineering and Education for Social and Environmental Justice. It takes an explicitly social and environmental justice stance on waste and attempts to assess the social impact of waste management on those who are also the most economically vulnerable and least powerful in the society. We hope that this book will assist our readers to think critically and understand the framework of socially and environmentally just waste management. Table of Contents: Introduction / Towards a Just Politics of Waste Management / Expertise, Indigenous People, and the Site 41 Landfill / Waste Management in the Global North / Waste Management in the Global South: A Sri Lankan Case Study / Assessing the Feasibility of Waste for Life in the Western Province of Sri Lanka

About the author

Randika Jayasinghe is a second-year Ph.D. student at the School of Environmental Systems Engineering, University of Western Australia. She is an AusAID Leadership Awards Scholar, working towards developing poverty reducing solutions for sustainable waste management in Sri Lanka. Randika has carried out many projects in the waste management sector in Sri Lanka and is interested in studying how social and environmental justice principles can be integrated into waste management in developing countries. Usman Mushtaq is interested in issues at the intersection of justice, technology, and engineering. He recently finished with his academic work and is delving into the professional world. He is particularly interested in looking at how the public is consulted and engaged in decision-making around engineering projects and environmental impact assessments. Toni Smythe studied environmental engineering at the University of Western Australia and became involved inWaste for Life through her final year thesis,which assessed the feasibility of a new project in Sri Lanka. She is currently working for the Department of Water, Perth, within the surface water hydrology team. Caroline Baillie is Chair of Engineering Education for the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics at the University of Western Australia. Caroline is particularly interested in ways in which science and engineering can help to create solutions for the environment as well as social problems. She is Editor of the Morgan and Claypool series, 'Engineers,TechnologyandSociety,' and Director of the Australian program (funded by the Office of Learning and Teaching) "Engineering Education for Social and Environmental Justice" of which this book is a part. She founded the global Engineering and Social Justice network and applies this lens to her work for Waste for Life which she co-founded with Eric Feinblatt.