SIP10001: Waste Management as a Wicked Environmental Problem Report

This report explores waste management as a wicked problem, examining its complexities and the challenges it poses to environmental sustainability. It begins by defining "wicked problems" and explaining why traditional problem-solving approaches often fail in addressing them. The report then delves into the specific case of waste management, highlighting how rapid industrialization, inadequate sewage systems, and a lack of eco-friendly disposal methods contribute to environmental pollution. It discusses the involvement of various actors, including households, industries, and even living beings, in waste generation, making it difficult to pinpoint the root causes and implement effective solutions. The report emphasizes the importance of governance, public awareness, and the adoption of sustainable practices, such as recycling and the use of biodegradable materials, to mitigate the adverse effects of waste management. The report concludes that waste management is a critical wicked problem and calls for collaborative efforts to address the global environmental challenges.

Running Head: Environment Related Wicked Problem
Waste Management: A Wicked Problem

Waste Management: A Wicked Problem 1
Introduction
In the recent times, environmental protection has become the critical issue to deal with. The
rapidly increasing pollution is causing severe harm to the various constituents of the ecosystem
such as its climate, water, soil, living beings, flora and fauna etc. The major reason behind the
intense pollution in the environment is the failure to manage and dispose the wastage resulting
from various household as well as business activities. The problem of environmental waste
management has nowadays turned to a wicked problem as it is getting difficult to cope with as
there is no concrete solution to solve it. The wastage in the environment is causing problems of
environment sustainability, global warming and other adverse health problems. Though the
environmentalists and policy makers are coming up with different solutions to deal with the
concern of waste management in the ecosystem but no action is proving to be sufficient to solve
it.
What is a Wicked Problem?
Wickedness is not a degree of the difficulty rather wicked concerns are those issues that cannot
be resolved using the traditional processes. There are innumerable causes of any wicked
problem and such causes are hard to be described. Also, wicked problems are complex enough
that they don’t have the defined solution. A concern is called as wicked problem when it has
adverse cultural and social impact and is difficult or almost impossible to solve due to various
reasons such as inadequate or contradictory knowledge, the interconnectedness of the particular
with other problems, the involvement of large number of problem or the heavy economic burden
(Cooper, 2017). Solution to the wicket problems could either be good or bad only but not true or
false. No idealized end is there to reach at the solutions of these problems hence these problems

Waste Management: A Wicked Problem 2
requires approaches that finds the ways to improve the situation under concern and not the ways
to solve it thoroughly. Wicked problems do not demand to follow a prescribed template to deal
with them rather they require the continuous efforts as the situation demands. Not all the
problems that are difficult to solve can be called as wicked problems instead only those issues
that have an indeterminate scope or scale. In the practical world, there are several concerns that
represent classic examples of wicked problems such as poverty, gender inequality, terrorism,
environmental degradation etc. (Camillus, 2008). In nature, these problems are ordinary but
complex enough and thus can be solved through the application of standard approaches.
Conventional approaches fail to fix these problems and often worsen the situations by producing
undesirable results. To solve a problem that is absolutely wicked in nature, it is necessary to
know well the system to which the problem belongs and to understand the complexity of
decision making process that will lead to the ultimate solution to the problem (Head & Alford,
2015).
Is waste management a wicked problem?
Due to the rapid industrialization, environmental challenges like waste management, climate
changes are increasingly becoming acute in the 21st century. These are the problems where it gets
tough to identify the linkages between their casual factors and hence it is tough to the true
problem and determine the exact solution to resolve them (Rayner, 2006). It is generally
observed that the households and industries dispose huge of amount of wastages in the open
environment due to absence of adequate sewage systems and this causes heavy pollution in the
ecosystem (Barr, 2007). Especially the factories produces huge quantum of hazardous wastages
both in the liquid, solid and aerial forms (Arena, Mastellone & Perugini, 2003). Despite of
stringent policies and control measures from the environment regulators, the industrial and

Waste Management: A Wicked Problem 3
domestic wastage is being dumped on the open lands and discharged into the water bodies rather
than adopting the eco-friendly ways to dispose the same. These practices amounts to gross
misconduct of the environmental regulations and damages environment severely which
ultimately causes serious health hazards to the public at large. Waste management is the concern
in which numerous actors are involved and above it, it is also not clear how to completely solve
this issue and therefore waste management is recognized as the wicked problem of the
environment (Head, 2008). The domestic units consume various vegetables, fruits, and other
edible items and their usage requires disposing-off the wastage in the form of plastic bags,
vegetable peelings etc. Also, the household units consume water in high quantities for the basic
activities and as a result of this water usage they have to discharge the waste or dirty water out of
their residential areas. The different sorts of wastages are disposed openly on roads and water
bodies that are used by the other constituents of environment and it ultimately cause severe
diseases among them. Further, it is also commonly encountered nowadays, that the huge
industries lack a proper sewage system to discharge the wastage produced by them in the normal
course of their operations. The toxic chemicals and gases from the thermal plants are left to be
openly spread in the air, causing heavy air pollution. Since, there are numerous factories set up in
the environment, it is difficult to trace the exact amount of wastage discharged by them
individually and therefore it becomes harder recognize the true actors of wicked problem of
environmental waste-management with the purpose of restricting them to take up the practices
and activities that are not at all eco-friendly. Furthermore, there are living beings other than
human beings such as plants and trees, animals, insects etc. that produces wastages in
considerable amounts and leaves them anywhere on the earth. The wastages in the forms of dry
leaves, rotten fruits or vegetables, biological produces cause significant pollution in the

Waste Management: A Wicked Problem 4
atmosphere which leads to increase in the spreadable diseases in the environment. However, it is
not practical to compel these creatures to adopt the waste management practices.
The responsibility of managing effectively and adequately the wastage cannot be assigned only
to the certain set of individuals rather it must be the responsibility of all the humans surviving in
the environment. The best way of managing the wastage is to avoid the excessive wastage.
However, there are certain situations when it is practically not possible to prevent the wastage
out of various sources such as factories, households, the most effective way to manage the waste
is to recycle it as far as possible in those particular circumstances.
In the highly competitive world, businesses executives are merely focused on accomplishing
their individual motives of profitability and growth to sustain in the market and in order to
achieve these goals and objectives they hardly bother about the impact they are causing to the
environment in which they are operating (Liboiron, 2012). However, it is the core responsibility
of every business to serve best to the society and environment in which it is operating rather than
hurting them critically. To operate the business smoothly and successfully, the managers requires
different resources that are available in the environment and when they use such valuable
resources of the ecosystem, they are in return, typically responsible to protect the environment.
On one side, it is the responsibility of governmental regulators and other authorities to design
appropriate and strict policies and control measures to prevent the waste disposal in the open
environment that creates intense pollution. It is the responsibility of the workers of the factory
working on the thermal plants and other machineries that generates waste produce and the top
management to adopt the necessary approaches of waste management so as to protect the overall
environment (Van Bueren, Klijn & Koppenjan, 2003).

Waste Management: A Wicked Problem 5
To deal with the wicked problem of waste management, governance plays an important role. It
requires a firm involvement of the public institutions to formulate feasible and necessary
solutions and to put them effectively in practice (Sharma & Reddy, 2004). The manufacturing
companies in the today’s world of advanced technological development must be encouraged to
produce the stuffs that are biodegradable in nature so as to control the disposal of excessive
wastage in the eco-system. Further, the individuals and business units must be given awareness
sections about the adverse effects of the environmental challenges imposed by the wicked
problem waste management (Tunesi, n.d.). The governmental bodies must motivate the
industrialists by way of grants and subsidies to adopt the suitable practices of managing the
waste produced by them. The factory operators must implement such plants and machineries in
the factories that control the quantum of emission of toxic elements in air so as to prevent the air
from getting excessively polluted. Also, the industrialists must make use of the sewage treatment
plants to avoid the disposal of wastages on the open lands (Mujtaba, 2018).
Conclusion:
From the above report, it can now be summarized that waste management is the typical example
of wicked problem that is being faced on the international level nowadays. The concern of waste
management has become so critical in the modern world due to the rapid industrialization in the
nations and due to this it has become quite difficult to trace out the actual actors of this problem.
The wickedness of the issue of environmental waste management in increasing day by day
because of involvement of large public in the issue and hence it is hard to restrict each individual
to undertake ill-practice of waste-disposal.

Waste Management: A Wicked Problem 6
References:
Arena, U., Mastellone, M.L. and Perugini, F., 2003. The environmental performance of
alternative solid waste management options: a life cycle assessment study. Chemical
Engineering Journal, 96(1-3), pp.207-222.
Barr, S., 2007. Factors influencing environmental attitudes and behaviors: A UK case study of
household waste management. Environment and behavior, 39(4), pp.435-473.
Camillus, J.C., 2008. Strategy as a Wicked Problem. Available on: <
https://hbr.org/2008/05/strategy-as-a-wicked-problem> Accessed on: 04.07.2018.
Cooper, K. 2017. “Wicked” Problems: what are they, and why are they of interest to NNSI
researchers? Available on: < https://nnsi.northwestern.edu/social-impact/nnsi-blogs/wicked-
problems-what-are-they-and-why-are-they-of-interest-to-nnsi-researchers/ > Accessed on:
04.07.2018.
Head, B.W. and Alford, J., 2015. Wicked problems: Implications for public policy and
management. Administration & Society, 47(6), pp.711-739.
Head, B.W., 2008. Wicked problems in public policy. Public policy, 3(2), p.101.
Liboiron, M. 2012. Trash is a Wicked Problem. Available on: <
https://discardstudies.com/2012/12/10/trash-is-a-wicked-problem/> Accessed on: 04.07.2018.
Mujtaba, M. 2018. Are we facing wicked problems? Available on: < https://nation.com.pk/22-
Jan-2018/are-we-facing-wicked-problems > Accessed on: 04.07.2018.

Waste Management: A Wicked Problem 7
Rayner, S., 2006.Wicked Problems: Clumsy Solutions – diagnoses and prescriptions for
environmental ills. Available on: <
file:///C:/Users/System04091/Downloads/2406939_1147109554_SteveRayner2CJackBealeLectu
reW.pdf> Accessed on: 04.07.2018.
Sharma, H.D. and Reddy, K.R., 2004. Geoenvironmental engineering: site remediation, waste
containment, and emerging waste management technologies. John Wiley & Sons, Inc..
Tunesi, S. n.d. Waste Management. Available on: <
http://www.riskandsolutions.eu/waste_management_tunesi/> Accessed on: 04.07.2018.
Van Bueren, E.M., Klijn, E.H. and Koppenjan, J.F., 2003. Dealing with wicked problems in
networks: Analyzing an environmental debate from a network perspective. Journal of public
administration research and theory, 13(2), pp.193-212.