Zero Waste Living in Rwanda
I recently found myself on a midday four-hour ride across the Sahel in a car without air conditioning. As the air temperature crept towards 104°F, I sunk into the depths of lethargy and scanned the horizon out the window. I took in the endless stream of sandy, dusty fields dotted with baobab trees, the occasional home, and — startlingly — heaps and heaps of trash.
This was not just some casual littering. There were house-size piles of trash, fields full of bags of garbage, and goats and cows feeding on the piles of waste. I felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of the trash and, being in a totally foreign country, quite powerless to do anything about it. But this abrupt confrontation with a clear picture of our world’s waste management problem was a catalyst.
As the miles of trash-cluttered landscapes we passed grew, my lethargy was replaced by unease as I started to think about the trash I was creating: the plastic bag my snack came in, the cup I got coffee in that morning. And I started to feel guilty for all the future trash the plastic items I had with me — such as my toothbrush, my nearly worn-out flip flops, my bottle of hand sanitizer — would create.
A plastic bag takes an estimated 500 years or more to decompose. And in those 500 years, it has numerous opportunities to wreck havoc on human, animal, and environmental health. In the beginning it might sit in a pile where it can attract rats, flies, and other vermin that spread infectious diseases. It might later end up washed into our waterways where it can damage marine habitats or be consumed by marine life, causing them injury, toxicity, or starvation. Or it might end up burned in an open fire, releasing toxic pollutants into the air.
Looking out the window that day in the Sahel, I pictured all the items of waste I was creating piling up in those heaps, choking the vegetation, and suffocating the Earth. It felt claustrophobic and momentous. Something needed to change.
Since that precipitous ride across the Sahel, I have been thinking a lot about the Zero Waste lifestyle, exemplified by Bea Johnson’s Zero Waste Home. It’s extreme, and my current lifestyle is a far cry from one jar of trash a year. I don’t expect that in the next 12 months I’ll get my trash down to one jar; and I probably won’t get there in the next three years. But there are some small changes that seem very manageable for me to make.
A lot of the zero waste literature focuses on life in the United States and Europe, but I’ve been thinking a lot about living zero waste in the context of my current home, Rwanda. Rwanda is unique — it’s one of the cleanest countries I have ever experienced. Plastic bags, one of the worst types of trash for the environment, are banned by law, littering is explicitly prohibited, and many areas have decent waste management systems in place. Integrating livestock and farming — so food waste feeds your livestock and livestock waste feeds your food — is common.
Many of the zero waste lifestyle changes are the default here.
One of the classic steps towards zero waste is to buy in bulk and bring your own tote bag. In Rwanda, that’s often the default option. Markets here are a haven for bulk shopping: there are peas and beans piled in woven baskets, fish sprawled on the counters, and veggies stacked in beautiful towers with no plastic packaging in sight. Plastic bags are banned, so you could buy a paper bag for a few Francs, but for the most part everyone is more than happy to fill their own bags instead.
In fact, many of the zero waste lifestyle changes are the default here — hang drying your clothes, conserving water when showering, using cloth towels instead of paper, and generally just getting by with less. Though I imagine it feels a little different when it’s not a deliberate choice.
Some of the hallmarks of the rising economic status of a country or a family go against what’s best for the environment.
Some of the hallmarks of the rising economic status of a country or a family go against what’s best for the environment. Having supermarkets and going to a box store instead of the local market seems more developed, but the supermarket is full of plastic packaging and convenient processed food while traditional markets have a beautiful supply of whole foods sold in bulk. Which makes me wonder: How can we expand the amount and type of goods available while also considering the environment? Are there creative policies that could be put in place to mitigate the environmental cost of economic growth? How can a country retain some of the existing systems that support a healthy planet without also slowing development?
How can a country retain some of the existing systems that support a healthy planet without also slowing development?
Rwanda has demonstrated a willingness to confront these questions and a resilience to general trends in development, for example banning plastic bags to protect the environment despite protests that it would slow economic progress. Their boldness and their success gives me hope that the Rwandan example can set a precedent and be a model to others. The time for bold action from all countries, and all individuals is now. As the trash on the road in the Sahel reminds me, garbage is choking our planet. And without a healthy planet to sustain us, how will we possibly live?
Maggie Wilson is a 2016–2017 Global Health Corps fellow at Gardens for Health International in Rwanda.
