Geoff Manaugh, an editor of Dwell magazine and BLDGBLOG blogger, writes about an investigation into the possiblities for establishing buildings in London that could be purpose-built to house waste management systems. Distributed waste towers not only might make it more practical to use energy generated within these buildings, they also might raise the possibility of ubiquitous waste management - as opposed to dumping trash in landfill sites that are out of sight and out of mind. Making waste is one of the things we do (really well), so maybe if we stopped hiding it, we would stop pretending it doesn't exist.
Of course, here in South Africa our waste is made more obvious by the army of street people who scour our wheelie bins for recyclables and trundle down the streets with Pick 'n Pay trollies laden with goodies. And the network of recycling depots that receive those goodies are well distributed across the city. Even the more formal collection of municipal waste is, in some parts of Cape Town, already carried out by local workers going through informal townships and collecting waste at local depots for the municipal workers to collect. What we need is to find ways to process that waste locally, in ways that can create employment and turn waste into something useful. Compost it, gather methane from it, turn it into public art, create new forms of craft - whatever can make better use of resources.
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