Waste is all the stuff we don't want, the stuff we call "rubbish"!  Ideally what we would all like is for it to just "go away", quietly and without fuss!   And basically we then don't care what happens to it.

Alas, life isn't that simple.  Currently the people of West Sussex produce over 400000 tonnes of rubbish each year!  It can be moved to somewhere else.  It doesn't just disappear!  Some of it may in time decay, but that's a source of bad smells, pollution affecting drinking water supplies, and greenhouse gas emissions.  Waste is a source of problems but it has to be dealt with somehow.  And add to the domestic rubbish all the waste and packaging discarded by commercial businesses: the problem merely grows!

There's yet a further important issue here.  The stuff we throw away contains very useful materials.  Glass bottles, aluminium and steel cans, other metals and plastics can all be readily recovered and reused or reprocessed into new products.  Similarly food waste and other organic materials can be processed, e.g. by composting, to provide useful outputs.

So who has responsibility for dealing with our waste?  We all have!  But Chichester District Council are obliged to collect rubbish from our homes.  (Commercial organisations make their own arrangements.)  It is then handed over to West Sussex County Council for treatment and disposal.

Methods of collection, handling and ultimate disposal of waste are currently under review by local authorities including in depth consultations with local 'Community Interest Groups' (CIG).  The aim:  to devise a waste management strategy covering the period up to 2030.  Manhood Peninsula Friends of the Earth are strongly represented on the CIGs. 
Other, more drastic approaches to waste management are suggested at zero waste and grassroots recycling.  Surprisingly perhaps, both are USA-based organisations, who are advocating 100% recycling of waste as a practical possibility.  The sites include links to wider international sourses of information.


[Lowwer picture adapted from WSCC presentation by kind permission]