INTERVIEW - Johannesburg aims for green Earth Summit
Date: 06-Aug-02
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Author: Ed Stoddard
"We really want to make this summit as green as possible and leave a legacy (for future summits)," Mary Metcalfe, the minister responsible for environmental affairs in Gauteng province which includes Johannesburg, told Reuters.
About 40,000 delegates and media have signed up for the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) from August 26 to September 4 and the figure is expected to rise. About 100 heads of state are also expected.
That will add heaps of junk to the 140,000 tonnes of waste, very little of which is recycled, that the residents of Africa's financial and commercial hub produce each month.
"We hope to divert 90 percent of our waste from the landfills where most garbage in Johannesburg goes. We plan to do this through recycling and composting," Metcalfe said.
While heads of state will be whisked around town in petrol-guzzling limousines, Metcalfe said catalytic converters - which reduce exhaust emissions - would be attached to some of the buses being used to transport delegates and activists.
She said on the procurement side, the summit was giving its business where possible to companies that displayed "higher levels of environmental senstivity".
"It is the first time that some local companies have been asked about their environmental practice. We have been asking them what they do with their waste and things like that and we feel this has contributed to better practice," she said.
The summit's electricity grid will use some solar power.
"We are also going to have a consumption barometer, which will run daily and show the delegates how much water, energy and waste they are consuming," she said.
Johannesburg has launched a clean-up campaign to remove refuse from its streets ahead of the summit, which is a follow-up to the Rio Earth Summit held a decade ago.
It will attempt to map out concrete plans to reduce poverty and bridge the North/South income gap without inflicting irreparable harm on the environment.