Waste management and research and the sustainable development goals: Focus on soil and groundwater pollution

The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the United Nations (UN) most definitely brings well-needed hope in today’s technically advanced yet tumultuous and troublesome world where large segments of the population are desperate, helpless, and generally left out. It connects poverty alleviation, human wellbeing, and environmental protection in new and more integrated ways. The 2030 Sustainability Agenda brings hope by stimulating action over the upcoming years through the implementation of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and their 169 associated targets in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet, thus hopefully shifting the world onto a sustainable and resilient path where no one is left behind. International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) was among the first institutions embracing the SDGs and, judging by its undertaking of the hefty global initiative to close the 50 most polluting dumpsites of the world, ISWA is clearly committed to ensure that the SDGs are indeed effectively implemented as soon as possible. Closing dumpsites constitutes an implicit or explicit target for many of the SDGs, as outlined in the September 2016 ISWA Roadmap Report, unveiled during the ISWA 2016 World Congress in Novi Sad. Sadly enough, the most recent landslide failure on 11 March at the Koshe dumpsite in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa comes to underscore the significance of this ISWA initiative in the most devastating yet not so much pollution-related way: A mound of trash collapsed on an informal settlement killing at least 115 people, the majority of them being women and children, with dozens more still missing. And it is not the first and definitely not the deadliest such tragic failure, both the Payatas in the Philippines (2000) and Bandung in Indonesia (2005) dumpsite landslides claimed more lives, 200 and 143 souls, respectively. However, no matter how devastating such tragedies are, they are mostly mechanical failures where mountains of trash are piled with little regard for stability. From an engineering standpoint, such failures can be very easily averted, by just following some simple rules of slope stability (while also accounting for flammable methane and other decomposition gases) when piling the waste. And, of course, by moving to a different disposal location, once the waste piling capacity of the site has been reached, which is easier said than done in most of the world, especially in the places that is most needed. This was, at least partly, the case in the latest Koshe dumpsite landslide, where last year, the local authority tried to close the site and relocate dumping to a new landfill site at Sendafa, but opposition by local farmers caused the rubbish collectors to move back to Koshe, leading to the tragic epilogue of 11 March 2017. Unlike dumpsite landslides, environmental pollution-related tragedies are, by and large, much more subtle, less sudden failures, but in the long run much more devastating for both humans and the environment. There is now growing scientific evidence that exposure to lower levels of chemicals in the general environment is contributing to society’s cancer burden. Pollution of air, water, and soil, primarily owing to inadequate management of wastes and chemicals, constitutes the largest threat for disease and death in lowand middle-income countries. The World Health Organization (WHO), Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP) calculated that in 2012 exposures to polluted soil, water, and air resulted in an estimated 8.9 million deaths worldwide – 8.4 million of those deaths occurred in lowand middleincome countries. In this editorial I place a special focus on significant environmental pollution issues targeted by the SDGs, that would need to be mostly tackled by waste management professionals, both researchers and practitioners; namely, soil and groundwater pollution as they are intricately related to the provision of clean, safe, and accessible water around the world. This is clearly articulated in SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), but is also implied in the first four SDGs (No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well Being, Quality Education) and is a main thread of SDGs 11 through 15 (Sustainable Cities and Communities, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action, Life Below Water, Life on Land). The rest of the SDGs can also be linked to soil and groundwater pollution, although under a more subtle, indirect context. To this date, the traditional, highly successful technologically approach, ensuring availability of safe potable water, has been mainly based on wastewater treatment and desalination advances. This has provided a very solid and effective applied science and engineering foundation and a highly entrepreneurial and very profitable business environment. However, in my view, at this time, there has to be a shift in focusing more on groundwater protection and treatment. Considering that about one-third of the world population lives in slums, without adequate sanitation and other public services, wastewater treatment and even more so desalination require, for the most part, relatively high capital investments. Conversely, protection, pumping (even from larger depths), and treatment of groundwater can be a significantly more affordable and flexible option, ensuring access to safe potable water, until the economics would allow for upgrading to the high-tech, yet more costly, wastewater treatment and desalination infrastructure. Aside from this, as a direct result of overpopulation and climate change, there is an Waste management and research and the sustainable development goals: Focus on soil and groundwater pollution 706474WMR0010.1177/0734242X17706474Waste Management & ResearchEditorial editorial2017