– The study’s conclusion that 85 percent of humanity is experiencing climate impacts may sound high. But it’s “probably an underestimation,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study.
– A September study in Nature found that 60 percent of Earth’s oil and fossil methane gas and 90 percent of coal must remain in the ground for the world to have a chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) — a threshold that scientists say would spare humanity the most disastrous climate impacts.
Landfills are a major source of methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide. According to the USEPA, landfills are the least desirable means of waste disposal because of their methane emissions. Since your Foundation has offices in several European cities, we’re sure that you are aware that the European Union has voted to phase out landfilling completely, and in fact several countries have already done so, with significant reductions in greenhouse gases as a result. So tell us, please, Mr. Gates. Why ‘invest’ in landfills? Millions of concerned citizens want to know.
Schmidt-Pathmann has advocated for an Integrated Waste Management System, which utilizes multiple waste management strategies including source reduction and reuse, improved recycling and composting, energy and material recovery from waste streams and better treatment and disposal. He said an integrated waste strategy could be implemented by 2030, could save billions of dollars in the coming decades and would reduce the environmental impacts of our waste system.
“Anyone who cares about the environment and their property tax bill should be concerned about this,” said Schmidt-Pathmann. “It is critical that you contact your County Councilmember and let them know you don’t want any more public money sunk into the ‘landfill liability’ including transfer stations. There is a better – and cheaper – solution.”
Schmidt-Pathmann agreed that there is a high potential for increased waste diversion in King County and that the county needs better recycling infrastructure. He said WTE can be a part of an improved integrated waste management system that is both more economical and more sustainable than the use of landfills.
“What is important in this discussion is considering what the alternatives are,” he said.
Landfills, according to Schmidt-Pathmann, are “archaic and antiquated,” and so are the laws used to regulate them. He said landfills themselves are relatively large greenhouse gas emitters, citing that 40 percent of California’s methane emissions come from landfills alone — more than the levels produced by the livestock industry.
He said landfills present residual public health effects over time, particularly with people who live close to them. He said when people notice the hard-to-detect environmental impacts that landfills are creating, it is usually too late.
King County’s recently completed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for “potential” expansion of the Cedar Hills Landfill is yet another example of the County going through the motions but having the conclusion decided well before hand, said Philipp Schmidt-Pathmann, President and CEO of the Institute for Energy and Resource Management (IeRM). “If you look at the timetable the County set out months ago, you will see that the last item is ‘Construction of new landfill area within the Cedar Hills Regional Landfill property.’ There was never any question, regardless of public sentiment or scientific findings.”