September 7, 2022
Interviews
Pierre Guerber is committed to the global fight for social and environmental justice, with a primary focus over the past several years on waste-related issues. He has co-founded with Nara (Narantuya Gursed), the NGO EcoSoum in her hometown in Mongolia. EcoSoum is one of the partners of Caritas Czech Republic working on Sustainable Plastic Waste Management along with other project partners. In this interview, he explains what they are doing to solve waste-related problems in the local community and shares practical issues that they have encountered.
Why is sustainable waste management crucial and why is it an issue in Mongolia?
It's crucial because now we understand the impact of waste, especially plastic. There is research about the impact of microplastics and nano plastics and it's very scary. We have plastic in our blood, it interferes with our brain and reproductive system, so I think that is a sufficient reason. I don’t think it is a problem specifically for just Mongolia, I think the issue is the same in most countries.
What are you doing to solve the waste-related problem in your community?
We set up a waste management system in Mongolia because basically until now the sole option was for people to throw waste on the top of a hill on the outside of the steppe. So, we set up this waste management facility where people can bring their waste. At the same time, we teach people why and how they should sort their waste. We try to bring the waste to the people who can manage it, which means waiting for a truckload that we can then have delivered to the waste recyclers in Ulaanbaatar.
Most importantly we are using this information for advocacy purposes to create systemic changes, which are absolutely necessary. We have been analyzing which brands are responsible for the majority of the waste we process and are hoping to convince them to accept that they have a responsibility to help the community manage the waste from their products. The work we are doing has two purposes, first to help with waste management within the community, and second to use these solutions as a pilot and proof of concept to sustain our advocacy campaign.
What are the challenges that the EcoSoum NGO has encountered?
In our community it is a lack of investment and involvement from the people and especially the administration. First when we established EcoSoum, we asked the people: “We want to live here, in Nara’s home town, we happen to have these skills and knowledge and want to help. What do you think is the most important issue to solve?” We are committed to implementing development projects with a truly localized framework. This is Nara’s home, we feel like it is the only place we can work legitimately and mainstream the community development mantra “Nothing about us, without us.”
We were told waste management is the main issue. So, we started working on waste. But although the locals told us it was an issue, they were not as involved as we have expected after the 3 or 4 years we have been working here. We can lead the way and suggest solutions, but we cannot do it for them.
The other problem at the national level is that even if people got involved and sorted their waste, the waste management system is not designed in a way that waste can actually be managed. There is too much waste and no proper solution here, including in terms of recycling.
What are some of the issues with sustainable waste management in your soum and how did you overcome them?
I believe that eventually, people will sort their waste because it is not so complicated.
The main problem is that once we have all this sorted waste, there are no good solutions that have a significant impact on sustainability. For example, when people sort their glass and we have bottles in good condition, the companies that claim they will buy them back refuse to do so because allegedly there is a scratch or some minor defect. These kinds of issues are becoming more common as sorting waste becomes more practiced and there is more waste trying to be returned or recycled.
How are the recycling centres dealing with waste?
If we take this to a larger scale above EcoSoum, more and more people including administrations and soums are trying to improve waste sorting, so more and more waste is being brought to recyclers. This means the recyclers are overwhelmed with the amount of waste. As more waste comes to them, they decrease the purchasing price for recyclables or simply stop buying. This is a massive practical issue; this is why I think that the main focus should be targeting the channels available to manage waste rather than changing people’s minds and habits. This again takes time and inertia but eventually, it will work.
Are there any unique opportunities for those who are interested in working in waste management in Mongolia, both in the cities and the countryside?
At the soum level, it is really easy to come up with a system and a project that can induce change. In that sense, it is much easier to scale and organize a system whether it’s for a few thousand people here or five thousand people there. I think Mongolia can and should be at the front line of implementing these kinds of advanced, radical solutions because it has the demographic situation that enables it.
What needs to be done to improve waste management in Mongolia? Increase the flow of waste to recycling centres or increase the capacity to create goods from recycled waste?
I don’t think they oppose each other; you need more waste to go to the recycling points so that more waste goes to the recyclers to make more products. The problem is that nothing is recycled in Mongolia, at best it is downcycled. This is not a detail; it is a big issue. This doesn’t close the loop; this just postpones the time before that product ultimately ends up in the landfill.
The two elements of this question make up perhaps 10% of the solution, we are still 90% away from solving the big picture issue. Recycling gets 90% of the attention when it comes to waste management when it is a small part of the waste management transition we need, in reality, we need to be focusing on reducing and reusing.
What is the first thing you would encourage people to do to contribute to a more sustainable future when it comes to waste?
I would love for people to understand it’s not about the individual level because that’s the main message that we hear, change yourself and you will change the world or sort your waste and the waste will be managed. This is so far from reality. Of course, as an individual you have to sort your waste, but it should be a basic automatic habit, not something that you do for the planet. You don’t say hello to someone on the street for any personal benefit or higher reason, but you still do it anyway. Sorting waste should simply be done as a matter of civic duty, just because it’s the right thing to do. Once you do have waste being sorted and recycled, you solve 5% of the problem but the core problem is still there.
Precisely what I would want people to understand is the big picture of the problem of the waste crisis, which is the organization of the economy and the way waste is improperly managed. Too much waste is produced regardless of changes to our habits and consumption patterns.
That’s why I really want people to understand it’s not all about them, not because it would mean they don’t have to sort or take care with their waste habits, but because the core problem is much more interesting and requires more attention. I think where this conversation gets interesting and worth having is when people start to become aware and start talking about the political, economic, and societal levers that enable the system we have to continue.
What is your vision for the future of Ecosoum?
We are not here to tell Mongolians what they should do, here at our soum level we are not trying to tell people what to do, but it is where we live, we are impacted by the waste so we believe we can legitimately fight against those things that impact us.
We want to answer other soum’s needs, we will keep working here if the people in the administration consider that we have something to add. If they want us to work here and ask us for support, we will do our best to help our fellow citizens. Regardless of what we could do here, what we want to do is help other actors in other soums; it will really depend on what other people want us to do.
If people think we have good ideas and solutions to bring, then we will help whoever needs it. In that sense, I guess we are going towards not expanding, but working in other places in Mongolia. We see ourselves sharing our knowledge with other soums, not because we are smarter or know more, but because it seems like we are the main relay for the best practice zero waste strategies from global activist organizations. We find zero waste solutions that have worked in other countries and apply those lessons and adapt them to Mongolia. I don’t think many actors here work this way, with this long-term plan and holistic, system-wide view of waste.
What does the future of sustainable waste management in Mongolia look like to you?
With the current trends, it doesn’t look good, not just for Mongolia but for most countries because there are two ways to see waste management and solutions. Our way, that of the circular economy and striving for a zero-waste system, is not winning for sure, at this point at least. The current power dynamics in politics and the economy reinforce a system that endorses consumption and solutions that disrupt capitalism as little as possible.
But you never know and sometimes the best aspect about things going wrong is that they enable actual good solutions that were always there but no one thought it was worth the effort involved. If the easier, less effective solution fails, then you are left with the good solutions that seemed too hard at first. If we succeed in sorting more and bringing more waste to recyclers and reusing companies, and we can show that under the current conditions it does not work, maybe it will enable stronger, systemic change.
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