Protect the Climate through Recycling!

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Please sign this open letter to be delivered to climate negotiators in Copenhagen. The new climate treaty must support efforts to increase recycling through the informal sector, instead of funding incinerators and landfill gas systems.

Dear Heads of State and Climate Change negotiators: We are writing to call your attention to an important but under-recognized issue in the climate change negotiations: the mitigation potential of recycling and waste reduction, and the threat posed by false “waste-to-energy” solutions such as incinerators and landfill gas systems. In the developing world, wastepickers and recyclers already contribute substantially to emissions mitigation and are ready to do more, if given the recognition and support they need and deserve. Recycling is one of the cheapest, quickest and easiest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developed and developing nations alike. Reducing emissions through recycling is 30% cheaper than through energy efficiency and 90% cheaper than through wind power. The potential of recycling, composting, biogas, and other waste prevention techniques to reduce emissions is enormous. Each family that recycles and composts reduces emissions as much as if it stopped driving the family car. Recycling has major economic benefits, employing at least 15 million people in developing countries. Even in developed countries, recycling provides 10 times the jobs per ton of waste as incinerators and landfills. Wastepickers working in the informal economy are at the heart of existing recycling systems in the developing world, and must play an integral role in any expansion of recycling. Evidence from a range of developing countries shows that when municipalities try to bypass wastepickers by granting contracts to private waste management companies, these programs often fail outright and lead to job loss, wasted public resources, lower recycling rates, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Clean Development Mechanism is supporting incinerators and landfill gas systems which compete with wastepickers and recycling programs. These projects increase greenhouse gas emissions and unemployment – exactly the opposite of the intended effect of the CDM. Instead, waste pickers need financial and technical support from a non-market based financial mechanism. Therefore, we ask you to: - recognize the critical and productive role that the informal recycling sector contributes to climate change mitigation and to a healthy economy. - approve a Global Climate Fund that will invest in resource recovery programs that ensure decent livelihoods for all workers and traders in the recycling economy, and is directly accessible by wastepickers and other informal sector groups. - exclude waste disposal technologies (including incinerators, landfill gas and incinerator variants such as pyrolysis, gasification and plasma) from the CDM and other climate funds. For more information, please see www.no-burn.org/wp. Sincerely,

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0-25 of 634 signatures

Number	Date	Name	Location	Your comments (optional):
634	July 27, 2010	Benjamin C. Weatherby	St-Pierre-Jolys, MB
633	July 27, 2010	Juan Ramirez	San Luis , AZ
632	July 26, 2010	Anonymous	barcelona	protect the nature always
631	July 25, 2010	larysa moler	phoenix, AZ
630	July 24, 2010	Emily Sperry	Brooklyn, NY
629	July 23, 2010	Laura Anderson	Springville, UT	Make all recycling programs free to households.
628	July 19, 2010	Dianne Boulton	Flinders, NE
627	July 17, 2010	david Lacy	irvine, CA
626	July 15, 2010	Parag Shah	Belmont, CA
625	July 15, 2010	Do Hee Kim	Saipan,
624	July 14, 2010	Samantha Radley	Komoka,
623	July 12, 2010	Denise Matias	Pasig
622	July 08, 2010	Jared Peace	Saskatoon, SK
621	July 06, 2010	Richard LaBrie	Montreal, QC
620	June 30, 2010	Rodrigo Souto	Salvador
619	June 29, 2010	Jacqueline Dioszegi	La Crosse, WI
618	June 17, 2010	Jessica Vargas	Tracy,
617	June 11, 2010	André Carvalho	Corroios,
616	June 07, 2010	Adam farag	alrington heights, IL
615	June 05, 2010	Alex Fregoso	Toronto, ON
614	May 26, 2010	Molly Egan	Hilliard, OH
613	May 25, 2010	Delia Ho	Dublin,
612	May 25, 2010	Emma Rosales	Arbuckle, CA
611	May 22, 2010	Lizzie Lee	Brighton,
610	May 16, 2010	David Gonzalez	Seattle, WA

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