Here's the tragic reality: even if we get our energy crisis under control and we have renewable energy everywhere, consumerism and waste problems aren't going anywhere anytime soon. So we still have to tackle those problems. I would argue that energy is probably our easiest issue to solve. Use solar, wind, hydro and nuclear in the environments where they make the most sense until we can finally get fusion off the ground. Sadly, the oil industry and lobbyists are still actively standing in the way of that, so there is that hurdle, and poorer countries simply can't afford the investment.
Public waste is deeply tied into consumerism. So you'll have to solve that problem, as well as find better solutions for how we properly dispose of waste. Sadly, even a lot of the stuff that we try to recycle still ends up offshores where it just ends up as garbage anyway. And certain types of plastic have to be taken to specialized facilities, whereas your city's recycling program will only take plastics 0, 1 and 2, paper, and aluminum. So there's going to need to be major reform in the overall waste system - at least on the U.S. side of things. Not sure what the system looks like in other parts of the world.
Public waste is deeply tied into consumerism. So you'll have to solve that problem, as well as find better solutions for how we properly dispose of waste. Sadly, even a lot of the stuff that we try to recycle still ends up offshores where it just ends up as garbage anyway. And certain types of plastic have to be taken to specialized facilities, whereas your city's recycling program will only take plastics 0, 1 and 2, paper, and aluminum. So there's going to need to be major reform in the overall waste system - at least on the U.S. side of things. Not sure what the system looks like in other parts of the world.
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