Planet Of The Year: Waste A Stinking Mess

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Like the journey of the spectral Flying Dutchman, the legendary ship condemned to ply the seas endlessly, the voyage of the freighter Pelicano seemed destined to last forever. For more than two years, it sailed around the world seeking a port that would accept its cargo. Permission was denied and for good reason: the Pelicano's hold was filled with 14,000 tons of toxic incinerator ash that had been loaded onto the ship in Philadelphia in September 1986. It was not until last October that the Pelicano brazenly dumped 4,000 lbs. of its unwanted cargo off a Haitian beach, then slipped back out to sea, trailing / fresh reports that it was illegally deep-sixing the rest of its noxious cargo. A month later, off Singapore, its captain announced that he had unloaded the ash in a country he refused to name.

The long voyage of the Pelicano is a stark symbol of the environmental exploitation of poor countries by the rich. It also represents the single most irresponsible and reckless way to get rid of the growing mountains of refuse, much of it poisonous, that now bloat the world's landfills. Indiscriminate dumping of any kind -- in a New Jersey swamp, on a Haitian beach or in the Indian Ocean -- simply shifts potentially hazardous waste from one place to another. The practice only underscores the enormity of what has become an urgent global dilemma: how to reduce the gargantuan waste by-products of civilization without endangering human health or damaging the environment.

Scarcely a country on earth has been spared the scourge. From the festering industrial landfills of Bonn to the waste-choked sewage drains of Calcutta, the trashing goes on. A poisonous chemical soup, the product of coal mines and metal smelters, roils Polish waters in the Bay of Gdansk. Hong Kong, with 5.7 million people and 49,000 factories within its 400 sq. mi., dumps 1,000 tons of plastic a day -- triple the amount thrown away in London. Stinking garbage and human excrement despoils Thailand's majestic River of Kings. Man's effluent is more than an assault on the senses. When common garbage is burned, it spews dangerous gases into the air. Dumped garbage and industrial waste can turn lethal when corrosive acids, long-lived organic materials and discarded metals leach out of landfills into groundwater supplies, contaminating drinking water and polluting farmland.

The U.S., with its affluence and industrial might, is by far the most profligate offender. Each year Americans throw away 16 billion disposable diapers, 1.6 billion pens, 2 billion razors and blades and 220 million tires. They discard enough aluminum to rebuild the entire U.S. commercial airline fleet every three months. And the country is still struggling to clean up the mess created by the indiscriminate dumping of toxic waste. Said David Rall, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences: "In the old days, waste was disposed of anywhere you wanted -- an old lake, a back lot, a swamp."