Waste Production and Overdevelopment: An Approach to Ecological Indicators

In this paper the magnitude of waste production in the overdeveloped part of the world is discussed. The focus is on what is seen to be technically possible and not on the changes in affluent economies of the East and the West which may be seen to be politically realistic. As such, the paper may be seen to give one vision of a future Utopia, where no people are engaged in material production for non-essentials while others starve to death or go unclad. If limitations in resource use make it impossible for all to attain the material standard of the industrialized world and if we are aiming at a world community of approximate equality in coverage of material needs, there is no other solution for the affluent than to cut down or 'trim the fat', be it in terms of biology or economics. It is implicit in the paper that over consumption has something to do with underconsumption, that overdevelopment has come about as a consequence of exploitation and an unjust division of labor between people and countries, even by brute force. But overdevelopment may also be bad for the overdeveloped and not only for those deprived of the necessary minimum for survival. We have not, there fore, tried to separate one case from the other, but rather looked at the question of how much can be said to represent waste. Our first approach studies three less industrialized countries which today are considered to have solved the problem of covering basic material needs. We find that these countries' per capita energy use represents only 13 % of the energy used by an average citizen in 16 selected industrialized countries. Our second approach examines the possibilities of cutting down on energy use in industrialized countries without changing the level of material production. Altogether, we find that a 30-40 % reduction from the present level would be a realistic goal for many overdeveloped countries. In a third approach, by analysis of the different sectors of an overdeveloped economy, we conclude that the potential reduction in energy use would probably be closer to the 80-90 % estimated in the first example than the 30-40 % estimated in the latter. We then discuss how the work force could be reorganized, given that the industrialized countries want to reduce the use of energy and give up the production of luxuries or excesses. Of the alternatives presented, we favor increasing the intensity of labor, combining this with a less energy-intensive societal structure in general, i. e. to emphasize increased self-reliance. Finally, we relate the problem of overproduction/consumption to indicators, stressing that indicators should primarily be concerned with resources that 1) are in scarce supply, and 2) that have something to do with the coverage of basic material needs.