The environment and recycling
In developing and emerging nations, growing populations and rapid urbanization are making functioning waste disposal one of the greatest challenges for large cities and sprawling urban centers. While waste arisings are steadily growing, especially in African and Latin American cities, the financial means are generally not available to set up appropriate infrastructure to manage the growing amounts properly. The public is not aware of environmental issues, and people do not practice the behaviors required to sort and recycle waste. As a result, a mix of organic, recyclable and toxic waste is left in enormous open-air mountains, uncontrolled dumps, or is simply discarded along the roadside in the immediate vicinity of the cities. This waste harms the environment, pollutes surface and groundwater over time, and thus poses a risk to human health.
With its projects, the Siemens Stiftung is seeking to improve the conditions facing many poor people who are forced to earn small amounts of money to survive by working, at significant risk to their own health, as waste pickers at dumps. Siemens Stiftung also supports business models that create jobs for unemployed young people in particular, and also make an important contribution towards conserving natural resources through recycling.
Model projects in Kenya, Bolivia, Peru and, beginning in 2012, in Ecuador illustrate that these problems can be considerably reduced under various conditions, and that lasting improvements can be brought about for people living in extreme poverty. Targeted training sessions and steps to raise public awareness of environmental, waste and health issues are key prerequisites for successful projects.
