Recycling

Future economic growth depends on the efficient marshaling of energy, raw materials, and scarce financial capital. If developing countries make the transition to a recycling society most quickly and smoothly it will have the healthiest environment and strongest economy.

An inventory of discards would reveal metal wastes more valuable than the richest ones, paper wastes representing thousands of hectares of forests, and plastics wastes incorporating highly refined petrochemicals. That these products rich in raw materials and concentrated energy are frequently considered worthless is indicative of a distorted economic system. We are literally throwing away our future.

Recycling offers the opportunity to trim waste disposal needs, and thereby reduces disposal costs, while simultaneously combating global environmental problems. Recycling metals, paper, glass, plastics, and organic wastes would lessen the demand for energy and materials.

Managing solid waste is a global problem: Refuse is produced throughout the world. But it is also a local problem in that there is no such thing as global waste stream. The cumulative waste management decisions made by local and national governments affect global energy balances, the rate at which the atmosphere warms, and the amount of pollution emitted into the environment. They also affect international trade flows and the accumulation of debt. Individuals are not powerless in the face of these problems that sometimes seem too abstract or remote for constructive action. The degree to which people and nations act together to conserve raw materials and energy resources can slow the rate at which the global ecosystem is altered.

In the growing cities the volume of discarded materials is surpassing the available managerial and physical capacities to dispose of them. Municipalities must watch their piling garbage piles and mounting problems. Adequate waste management infrastructure does not exist. No effort is being made to reduce waste volumes and recover recyclable materials.

Recycling programs that require not only a new way of thinking about waste but greater involvement by a host of small, dispersed participants face even greater institutional barriers. Despite these obstacles, our cities should integrate recycling into our waste management plans. These cities will thus save money by avoiding disposal costs and by selling secondary materials.

Getting consumers to participate and establishing markets for recovered materials are the keys to successful recycling programs. Several approaches have effectively increased recovery rates and sales opportunities. Consumers can segregate their recyclables for pickup, permit others to retrieve the valuable components, or pay for a central processing plant to separate them. They may also return selected items to the place of purchase or take them to a collection or redemption center.

The demand for recovered products can be enhanced by meeting the resource needs of regional industries, exploring new uses for secondary materials, and offering economic incentives to waste processors and companies that use recycled materials as product inputs. Procurement policies that either favor or explicitly do not discriminate against goods made with post-consumer wastes also boost demand. Market stimulation simultaneously requires guaranteed supplies of high quality secondary materials. Competition from virgin resources and industry standards for the finished product set the operating parameters. If recycled materials are not as reliable, they will not be used.

Programs geared to the recycling of specific products often include a monetary incentive, usually in the form of a deposit. When consumers purchase carbonated beverages or milk jugs, for example, they may be charged separately for the container. If it is returned clean and intact, the consumer receives a refund. Once popular, voluntary deposit programs will go and most schemes shall be spurred by legislation.

Retailers can also purchase reverse vending machines to accept returned containers and disburse deposit refunds. After inserting their containers (as rapidly as one per second), customers are issued either cash or a redeemable voucher, sometimes accompanied by promotional coupons. Most of the machines are designed to accept aluminum, but reverse vending machines that accept glass are already on the (Western) market.

Recycling programs are most effective when integrated within a city’s overall solid waste management plan. If added as an afterthought, and implemented outside of the waste collection system, recycling schemes typically have lower recovery rates.

To encourage the use of recycled products, government can require its purchasing agents to buy competitively priced goods that contain a certain percentage of post-consumer stock. Reports, laws, and different forms printed on recycled paper, government vehicles lubricated with refined oil, and public roads paved in part by recovered rubber all represent huge markets.

Use of recycled paper by government agencies is important not only because of the volume of government purchases (creating a large market demand), but also because government procurement arrangements will be used by province, local and private organizations as a model to establish programs of their own to buy recycled paper. Additionally, as the market grows for recycled paper, the unit cost will go down, reducing costs for all organizations.

If government is going to encourage recycling, it must also take some responsibility for enlarging secondary materials market. Government regulations and fiscal incentives may compel manufacturers to produce recyclable products and packaging.

Law should require all levels of government and government contractors to purchase “items composed of the highest percentage of recovered materials practicable, consistent with maintaining a satisfactory level of competition.”

Government can also generate markets by encouraging manufacturers to use more discards in their production processes and altering nonessential quality standards. Tax incentives to encourage the purchase of recycling equipment are an approach that will gain favor.

Less waste means less demand for expensive garbage-hauling equipment and waste transfer stations, as well as the loss of habitat for disease-spreading insects and rodents. Greater use of recyclable materials cuts the needs for imported resources, cuts the need for imported resources, reduces energy consumption, and curtails water and air pollution. Societies that recycle can more efficiently and less expensively allocate scarce energy and materials among growing populations. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

The Local Government System

A vision of local government (LG) in the future addresses two fundamental questions: why is LG necessary; and how will it secure the skills and capacity to do its job well. City planning thus involves the anticipation, so far as practicable, of all the city's future needs, physical, social, and financial. It seeks to turn the lessons of the past to the profit of the future.

Increased attention is now being given, the world over, to the improvement of the fundamental influences affecting city life. This new solicitude has been inspired by the extraordinary growth of cities, by the steadily increasing complexity of urban relations, and by a better appreciation of the fact that contented citizenship is largely a matter of congenial environment. The enterprise is today known as city planning—an endeavor to transform the modern community into a safer, more convenient, more healthful, and more attractive place of human abode.


The new system of local government indeed superbly excellent, despite initial years of its implantation, continues to sail in troubled waters. Most key officials are yet to understand the new situation providing a dominating role to the locally elected members in running the affairs of the city government. With this ambiguity we continue to see tons of uncollected trash, broken roads, and contaminated water supply and sewerage system in ghastly conditions. Many problems remain to be solved—securing clarity and understanding about the concept by all stakeholders. Still much work still has to be done.

The councils were elected on non-party basis to avoid conflict in service delivery. Sadly, not only the conflict continues to exist but cooperation is also absent. The development of LGs has also created a dearth of trained manpower, particularly in finance and planning, information technology, law and literacy groups.

Contrary to the concept of LG, the prevailing corrupt culture has thrown consumers of services at far end, with no say, whatsoever. The Council members receiving kickbacks from infrastructure projects, display large banners in self-praise and thus trying to create false impressions of their good work. Local projects are conceived not on preference basis, but on the amount of sweetener the elected representative will get. Thus the representatives elected by people turned out to be the guardians of their own private interests.

Among the varied activities of the modern city few are more intimately related to the daily life of the people. To safeguard the public health in any large community is a task of the first magnitude. But it is an indispensable public undertaking, for health is the greatest single factor in personal efficiency.

The modern city throws off an enormous amount of waste material from day to day. The total is sometimes as much as a ton daily per head of population. This waste consists of a great variety of things namely, rubbish, garbage, and sewage. Rubbish and garbage may become a health menace under certain conditions by increasing the number of rats, mosquitoes, flies and other insect carriers. The LG must engage private sector in handling these issues.

If the most imperative need of a modern city is its water supply, the next in point of urgency among its daily requirements is the removal of waste. A modern community could endure for a season without pavements, street lights, parks, telephones, or street cars; and it might conceivably struggle along for a time without schools, police, or fire protection; but without water and sewerage it would find the greatest discomfort and inconvenience within twenty-four hours. Public sanitation is therefore entitled to a place at the top of the list among the essential industries of every large community. It may be briefly defined as the art of removing all objectionable wastes in the most unobjectionable way.

The street plan of the city determines the configuration of its growth and development, including the general uniformity or variety of private structures. Nearly all the physical aspects of municipal administration are in some way or other related to the public thoroughfares, and it is for this reason that the fundamental importance of street planning, street construction, and street maintenance can hardly be exaggerated. In the modern city one-third or more of all the land area is dedicated to street use.

The Nazim occupies a position of great visibility, and constituents have high expectations about the leadership that he ought to deliver. He is viewed as the problem-solver-in-chief in city government. Unfortunately, despite the available power and authority, his honor has failed to get things done. The incumbents are more concerned in pseudo publicity rather than real work. They need to learn that only service to people matters. They will win hearts of people when they will solve their real problems. False publicity only promotes cynicism.

EDOs are professionals, and skilled civil servants. They have adopted a policy leadership role as well as implementation of programs, delivery of services, and management of resources. Though still somewhat ambivalent about this new role, they bypass the LGs for provincial governments on many important issues, including preparation of budgets.

LG should be seen as an asset rather than a potential threat. It is not defined as a delivery agent for federal or provincial government. It is another democratically elected tier of government, with the strengths and responsibilities that come with a democratic mandate.
Bureaucracy should accept this changed situation.

Cities in Pakistan are under increasing pressure to find effective ways to meet their problems and respond to the needs of citizens. With diminishing outside assistance, officials in city government are challenged to determine the purpose and direction of their government and to generate the resources to carry out their mission. They must not only find more revenues locally to address their problems, they must also discover the resources within themselves to give leadership to their city, provide quality services, and manage shrinking budgets with greater efficiency. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

Saving the Mother Earth

It is true to say that we live on a planet that is undergoing rapid changes due to the increases in population and industrial development. It is easy to feel environmental concerns, but they must be taken into account when considering our future.

It is now a proven fact that since the industrial revolution the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased significantly. As levels of this gas and other greenhouse gases also recently building up effect the way heat is distributed, it is predicted that there will be an increase in global temperature. It is certain that global population growth will continue for some considerable time to come. A larger global population will put expanding demands on global resources of food, water and energy and will accelerate climate and environmental deterioration.

The level of air pollution in Pakistan's two largest cities, Karachi and Lahore, is estimated to be 20 times higher than World Health Organization standards, and continuing to rise. The situation is depressing by reason of futile preparation and inept execution. Good and not so good regulations have never been enforced forcefully. In addition, enforcement does not imply effectiveness, and even if regulations were strictly enforced, many industries would be unable to comply. In 1996, only 3% of industries were able to pass the test for compliance.

For lacking combined effluent treatment facility, the wastewater is being allowed to flow into the nearest streams and causing pollution. The sub-soil waters of textile centers are highly saline and as such are unsuitable for producing high quality finished textile products. The saline or brackish sub-soil water is unfit for human consumption and also unsuitable for most of the industrial uses.

Air pollution has also become a major problem in most cities. There are no controls on vehicular emissions, which account for 90 percent of pollutants. The average Pakistani vehicle emits twenty-five times as much carbon monoxide, twenty times as many hydrocarbons, and more than three and one-half times as much nitrous oxide in grams per kilometer as the average vehicle in the United States.

Pakistan’s Perspective Plan (1988-2003) and previous five-year plans do not mention sustainable development strategies. There have also been no overarching policies focused on sustainable development and conservation. All our programs focus on reaching self-reliance in food production, meeting energy demands, and containing the high rate of population growth. Sorry to say, no priority has been accorded for curtailing pollution or other environmental hazards.

Consequently, deforestation has contributed directly to the severity of the flooding problem faced by the nation in the early 1990s. No solution has been found for the solid and liquid excreta that are the major source of water pollution in the country and the cause of widespread waterborne diseases. Because only just over half of urban residents have access to sanitation, the remaining urban excreta continue to be deposited in farms or on roadsides, into waterways, or incorporated into solid waste. Thus the vegetables grown from such wastewater have serious bacteriological contamination. Gastroenteritis, widely considered in medical circles to be the leading cause of death in Pakistan, is transmitted through waterborne pollutants.

Transportation contributes to four of the six criteria pollutants: ozone, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide. Pakistan’s transportation planning (if it all there is any) must take into account the impacts on both the natural and human environments. Transportation projects should closely see how they might impact the community, the natural environment, and our health and welfare.

In crowded streets filled with buses, trucks, automobiles, and motorcycles, often honk senselessly. Traffic noise should be reduced through a program of shared responsibility. Thus, provincial and local governments should practice compatible land use planning and control in the vicinity of roads. Local governments should use their power to regulate land development in such a way that noise-sensitive land uses are either prohibited from being located adjacent to a road, or that the developments are planned, designed, and constructed in such a way that noise impacts are minimized.

The EPA should also promote bicycle and pedestrian transportation accessibility, use, and safety. A long-range plan is needed to provide the development and integrated management and operation of transportation systems and facilities, including pedestrian walkways and bicycle transportation facilities.

Protecting public health, as well as preserving Pakistan's natural wonders, has made environmental protection increasingly important. Environmental issues attach more significance because under provisions of a World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement, Pakistan will have difficulty after 2005 exporting products from industries without adequate environmental safeguards.

Because Pakistan, along with other developing countries, has argued that it needs to be free of emission ceilings in order to develop its economy, the country has not taken on any emission reduction commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, nor is Pakistan a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol.

There are many things we can do to help reduce damage to our local, and therefore global, environment. An obvious one is attempting to reduce unnecessary consumption of products and power. Good insulation, lower heating thermostat settings, turning off appliances, solar heating and so on, as well as sensible use of water could be considered. Care can be taken to try to purchase goods which use less packaging waste and if possible less transportation. Where meat eaters should of course be concerned about animal welfare, vegetarians should be careful about the total amount of energy used in the production and transport of their food, which in some cases can threaten the effective environmental benefit of such a lifestyle.

The only course of action for us must surely be to make our individual effort to care for our world and encourage others, especially the young, to do the same. By working together at a local, national and international level it should be possible for our Mother-earth to have a viable future. www.asifjmir.com Organizational Transformation