The future of waste management is the future of technology. Today’s paradigm in waste management is consumers purchase consumer items, use them a few times, then discard them in large bins. Occasionally, products are recycle, but usually they are carted off to a landfill. One in the landfill, waste emits methane, accounting for around 11 percent of global emissions (Environmental Protection Agency). Clearly, a new paradigm is needed in waste management.
The Imagine 2050 report is daring to imagine the new paradigm (Brachlianof 3). Created by a waste management solutions company in the United Kingdom, it imagines a city efficient enough to thrive in the 21st century without lowering the standard of living. In their model, all waste is repurposed in the homes and businesses where it is consumed and recycled into the raw materials needed for producing more consumer goods. This economic model has been dubbed the “circular economy”. The tech covered in this report seems incredibly futuristic, but recent scientific advances make this report more than corporate marketing.
Take the outlandish-sounding notion of nanobot recycling. Imagine 2050 claims that waste will be broken down at the molecular level by nanobots and then rebuilt. This sounds like a science fiction story, but, in fact, most of the technology already exists. Scientists at MIT have invented a way to harness artificial intelligence in the production of synthetic DNA compounds (Knight). This would allow almost unlimited application of bespoke DNA creations that recycle any waste product. TRecent advances in nanotechnology have increased the ability of nanobots to purify water, and to convert wastewater into energy. (Arundavi, et. al, 6). The Imagine 2050 conference proposes using these developments to create organic plastics and biofuels within the comfort of your own home.
In fact, the most radical proposal in the Imagine 2050 conference is the complete decentralization of waste management. No longer will massive trucks haul off everything unwanted to some distant hole in the ground. Now, everything that can’t be automatically reused will be decomposed and recomposed by in-home processes. Recomposition will be handled by a process similar to that invented by scientists at Michigan Technological University and Aalto University in Finland. Researchers have built a system that uses 3D printing and an in-home plastic recycling machine to produce many common household goods. According to the article, this process uses half the energy of traditional manufacturing while producing goods for a few pennies.
Increasingly sophisticated algorithms will determine the form and speed of this in-home waste management process. But, as any computer scientist can tell you, algorithms run on data. Although physical recycling may be accomplished in-home and at higher efficiency, the waste management crisis of 2050 will probably revolve around data (Pickren 1). Already, there are conflicts over who controls, can legally produce, and can legally dispose of, data. When everything is integrated into these efficient, environmentally friendly homes, the amount of data produced will be several multiples of ten more than we currently produce. We will have to manage this waste.
After all, the Imagine 2050 report is not a guaranteed future. Maybe, through foreseen or unforeseen mishaps, we will not make the astounding, but attainable, technological breakthroughs to enable their vision of the future. Maybe waste will continue to be collected in trucks and carted to a big hole in the ground. And in that grim future, climate change will run amok and coastal cities will flood by century’s end. The future of waste management could be bright and futuristic, but it will require real humans working out real ethical and technological dilemmas before it can be attained.