VISION FOR A GLOBAL WASTE PROCESSOR FOR OUR PLANET!

Speech by: Bircan Ünver, M.A. Founder, President and Head NGO Representative of The Light Millennium Global (LMGlobal.Org) to the United Nations Department of Global Communications.
(2001, New York) & Author of the #GlobalWasteProcessor vision.

– Participates through pre-recorded video.
– For the full speech (PDF)

Title of the Conference: Safeguarding the Azure Blue · Striving for Strength toward the Ocean
Marine Practice and Path Exploration of the Two Mountains Theory
Main Organizers: Hebei University of Environmental Engineering & Two Mountain Theory Think Tank Alliance
Venue: Hebei University of Environmental Engineering, No.8 Jingang Avenue, Beidaihe District, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province
Date: June 8, 2026, World Ocean Day

ABSTRACT

[LMGlobal.Org] The global community’s approach to the marine plastic crisis remains fundamentally reactive. Current international negotiations heavily focus on production caps or localized recycling capabilities. This speech introduces the Global Waste Processor For Our Planet—a mandatory, multi-tiered infrastructure model that targets waste elimination directly at the point of origin. By establishing an automated utility for all future construction and executing a systematic upgrade across municipal, corporate, transportation, and sovereign sectors, this vision shifts global environmental policy from managing ecological collapse to structural prevention. This core concept and vision were initially introduced on behalf of The Light Millennium Global at the 2023 United Nations Water Conference within the #W175 side-event context, serving as an actionable proposed idea dedicated to the #WaterActionDecade.
Today, this expanded proposal explicitly intersects with the intergovernmental consensus-based declarations of the Third UN Ocean Conference (#UNOC3) and the structural mandates of the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport (#TransportDecade), which proposes transforming global policy from passive management into an automated, land-based shield for our oceans.

VISION FOR A GLOBAL WASTE PROCESSOR FOR OUR PLANET!

#GlobalWasteProcessorForOurPlanet — Vertical 4-compartment unit (Glass, Metal, Paper, Organic) with top controls and output hoses. Ready for apartment buildings today. Prevention at the source for a sustainable future. Illustration generated by #Grok (xAI) | July 2, 2026

Excellencies, Distinguished Colleagues, and Champions of our Global Ocean,

It is an honor to address this assembly at the Guardian of the Blue, Empowering Marine Development Marine Practice and Path Exploration of the Two Mountains Theory Conference.

Greetings to you all from New York…

I am Bircan Unver, founder-president of the Light Millennium Global, and the Head NGO rep to the United Nations Department of Global Communication.

We gather at a moment in human history where our current actions are instantly solidifying into ecological history. What we choose to do right after the “now” will decide the survival of our marine ecosystems.
Our ultimate responsibility is to invest our creative energy into the immediate future of human advancement.

Taking this is a unique opportunity, it is my distinct privilege to present to you a vision for Global Waste Processor For Our Planet, which I consider to be a powerful “Game Changer”.

My dedication to this cause was anchored firmly during the 2023 United Nations Water Conference, where we proposed  seven actionable visions as game changers for the UN Water Action Decade. We built up on that over the course of that historic gathering for the Third UN Ocean Conference, global leaders—such as Douglas Woodring of the Ocean Recovery Alliance, and His Excellency Ambassador Stan Smith of the Bahamas—vividly illustrated the structural emergency facing our waters.
From the plastic choking our high seas to the existential threats targeting Small Island Developing States, the message was clear: our current waste management models need to be redesigned for a circular economy, particularly, for local communities on an incentive basis, along with its required infrastructure and international legal frameworks. 

Right now, the international community is actively debating the UN Global Plastic Treaty. But the current debate suffers from a massive blind spot. We talk about banning plastics or expanding traditional recycling. We look at Waste-to-Energy infrastructure, which—while turning waste into electricity—still leaves behind massive quantities of toxic ash that require specialized landfills. 

We are treating the symptoms, but we are completely ignoring the root cause: the lack of a universal, systemic infrastructure at the very point of origin.


BACKGROUND

As we celebrate World Ocean Day today, on June 8 through this conference, the international community stands at a historic threshold with the ratification and implementation of the High Seas Treaty BBNJ Agreement. This monumental framework aims to place 30% of the world’s international waters into strictly protected marine areas by 2030. Yet, as we explore the path of this treaty, we face a profound  structural paradox. How can we truly protect the high seas if our land-based waste infrastructure remains fundamentally broken?

Banned plastics, industrial chemical fragments, and microplastics do not respect maritime boundaries; they flow relentlessly from our coastal cities into the global commons. We cannot achieve the noble mandates of the BBNJ Agreement, nor can we truly embody the deep Chinese ecological philosophy of the ‘Two Mountains Theory‘—acting as a true ‘Guardian of the Blue‘—without a revolutionary transformation in our physical infrastructure on dry land.

This proposal represents a direct continuation of the action-oriented commitment LMGlobal.Org submitted to the UN Water Action Decade during the 2023 United Nations Water Conference under side-event #W175. It builds directly upon the profound insights shared during our high-level virtual side event #V66 at the Third United Nations Ocean Conference (#UNOC3), titled: ‘NEW WAYS TO EFFECTIVELY SCALE PLASTIC RECYCLING – SOCIETAL CHANGE FOR THE COLLECTION OF PLASTIC CAN CREATE SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS.’

It was during the first Part 1 of this historic session (available via Vimeo.com/1096410988) that His Excellency Ambassador Stan Smith of The Bahamas to the United Nations introduced a profound blueprint for survival: The Bahamas Plastic Credit Marketplace Proposal.
Ambassador Smith vividly demonstrated that for small island developing states, plastic pollution is a climate-scale existential threat. The dialogue continued extensively into Part 2 of our event (available via Vimeo.com/1097412812), cementing the reality that localized, traditional recycling is failing us. 

To achieve the true ‘societal change for the collection of plastic‘ envisioned in our #V66 event, and to fulfill the promise of the Nice Declaration—’Our ocean, our future: united for urgent action‘—we must stop merely managing the symptoms of pollution. We must implement the Global Waste Processor for Our Planet as an automated, foundational shield directly at the point of origin.

THE INFRASTRUCTURE MANDATE

So, how do we bridge this critical gap?
We must begin to mandate the universal integration of the Global Waste Processor for Our Planet. To make this a reality, my vision looks at the problem in two straightforward ways:
for the future we build next, and for the world that already stands.

First, let us look at the blueprint of our future construction.
Moving forward, no architectural plan or engineering permit should be approved by any government without an integrated, automated waste segregation and compression system built right into its foundation. 

We must think of this system as a basic, primary utility—just like electricity, clean water pipelines, or internet cables. It must be a natural part of every new home, every commercial building, every public school, and crucially, within our global military bases, which occupy some of the largest self-contained compounds on Earth.

To make this a truly holistic approach for our ecosystems, this foundational blueprint must also mandate integrated gray water recycling systems.
A truly sustainable building cannot stop at managing dry waste; it must also capture, filter, and reuse its gray water right on-site. By treating and cycling water from our sinks and showers to serve our basic utilities, we drastically reduce the strain on our fresh water sources and block polluted municipal runoff from entering our waterways.

Second, we must address the infrastructure that is already standing today.
We must upgrade our cities step-by-step, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and country-by-country. 

This is not an impossible dream. We already see inspiring role models leading the way. Look at countries like Norway, which have successfully pioneered advanced, automated underground vacuum networks that move waste away from streets and handle it cleanly at the source.

We need to take that kind of bold infrastructure thinking and scale it globally. By installing an internal processing network right at the source, our buildings will automatically presort, sanitize, and compress dry waste the exact moment it leaves our hands. This changes everything. Instead of throwing loose plastic into a chaotic trash bin, we create a clean, tightly compressed stream of material that plugs directly into modern recycling systems based on exact classification. This is how we transform daily waste management into a daily ecological practice.

RADICAL ACCOUNTABILITY & THE TRANSPORTATION DEADLOCK

Furthermore, my vision addresses a massive blind spot in global data and corporate responsibility. Today, our global transportation sector is operating in a complete dark zone when it comes to physical waste. While the world carefully tracks carbon emissions, there is not a single comprehensive report—nationally or globally—that actually measures the immense amount of trash generated day after day, week after week, by each and all commercial flights whether nation-wide and/or international based on their departures and arrivals.

This missing data becomes even more urgent when we look at the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport #TransportDecade (2026-1935). During the global launch of this framework at the UN, I had a brief, direct conversation with a high-level profile from the Aviation Industry in the United 

States at the United Nations, New York (December 10, 2025).
Based on his delivered speech on behalf of the aviation industry, I asked him about the waste footprint generated by each and every flight.
In our short exchange, he revealed a critical systemic roadblock: following the security policies enacted right after September 11, 2001, strict regulations were placed on cabin materials that severely restricted traditional recycling and circular economy practices within the sector.
While he indicated that the industry is actively working toward a solution, a real answer has simply not been found or not been announced or implemented yet.

This is exactly where the Global Waste Processor changes everything.

We cannot allow decades-old security gridlocks to keep driving the destruction of our oceans. Because our proposed system relies on an automated, closed-loop mechanical core that sanitizes and heavily compresses dry waste right at the immediate point of origin, it entirely bypasses the security and labor risks that have stalled the aviation sector for a quarter of a century.
It proves that within the mandate of the Sustainable Transport Decade, we can fully protect national security on land while simultaneously acting as a true ‘Guardian of the Blue’ at sea.

This mandate must not only apply to the international airline industry for every full flight, but to all forms of public and mass transportation—including our city subways, intercity bus networks, and national rail lines. By embedding these automated compression systems directly into the physical infrastructure of our stations, cabins, and terminals, we remove the heavy burden of compliance from the everyday commuter.

We transform loose transit waste into a clean, predictable stream of compressed resources.

OPEN PROPOSAL FOR A  STEM & COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY STUDENTS LEVEL AWARDS PROJECT

To translate this vision from an idea into a tangible reality, I am proposing an immediate, open international collaboration today.
I call upon our distinguished hosts—Hebei University of Environmental Engineering and the Two Mountains Theory Think Tank Alliance—along with every scientist, engineer, and institution present in this assembly, to launch a global engineering and scientific project.

Before I share the blueprint, I must be entirely clear about where I stand: I am neither an engineer nor an investor. I am not here seeking a patent or looking for commercial profit.
I stand before you simply as the author of this vision, and as a non-formal educator representing a completely volunteer-based, non-profit organization.

Our only motive is the urgent protection of our planet.

To that end, I would like to formally propose right here the launch of a collaborative team and a global competition centered on the ‘Global Waste Processor for Our Planet‘.

Let us design an award-based project that specifically targets STEM students, university/college undergraduates, and master’s candidates working at these vital intersections of environmental science and engineering. I want to test the waters and see the global interest in bringing this vision to life, using the brilliant, untamed creativity of the next generation to build the physical frameworks.

This technology must be designed to fit three main areas of our lives, scaled across five distinct operational sizes so that no gap is left open anywhere in the world (each might have a min. 4 sub-sections/compartments for each categorized solid-waste material): 

1. Size 1 is for our Homes and Industrial Foundations – Ranging from small household kitchen units to large manufacturing plants.
2. Size 2 is for Small to Large Private Businesses – Custom-scaled for neighborhood storefronts all the way up to massive corporate complexes.
3. Size 3 is for Government and Educational Institutions – Built for municipal facilities, public schools, and university campuses.
4. Size 4 is for the Military Sector – Heavy-duty, high-capacity systems designed for self-contained bases and defense facilities.
5. Size 5 is for Developing Infrastructure – Specifically designed for rapid implementation in developing or underserved regions that are currently bearing the heavy burden of mismanaged plastic waste.

For our international airline industry, we must go a step further. Because international flights –as you all know–cross sovereign borders, they are bound by complex global biosecurity laws. Therefore, I propose a new ‘Multilateral Civil Aviation Environmental Agreement’ under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) or through the UN System! 

This global agreement would formally recognize the automated, sanitized, and sealed output of our on-board processors as completely biosecure. This simple policy shift would allow international flights to instantly unload pre-cleared, compressed resources at any airport globally, plugging them straight into local recycling streams without security delays.

The urgency for this engineering standard cannot be overstated. Even as we are presenting  ideas towards solutions for the immediate future on the World Ocean Day at the conference hall, some nations are actively investing in massive new facilities to manufacture millions of additional tons of plastic products and packaging (particularly, in the developing countries).
The production pipeline is not stopping.
Therefore, our defensive infrastructure cannot wait.
We must design and implement this standardized mechanical shield to intercept this material the exact moment it leaves our hands.

CONCLUSION

Ultimately, to fulfill the global promise of the intergovernmental Nice Declaration—‘Our ocean, our future: united for urgent action’—we must face an honest truth: we can no longer protect our waters with passive policies or fragmented, localized recycling. Marine protection requires a profound, systemic transformation in our daily habits, our municipal frameworks, and our physical infrastructure on land.

As The Light Millennium Global celebrates its 25-year cornerstone of public advocacy, we urge this assembly to look right past the immediate ‘now’ of our broken waste habits.
Let us stop merely managing the timeline of ecological collapse.

This is why I am so enthusiastic to stand before you today.
Let this conference be the birthplace of a real, tangible solution. 

I humbly invite Hebei University of Environmental Engineering, the Two Mountains Theory Think Tank Alliance, and every institution participating to this conference to join hands with us.

Let us launch this international award competition for STEM and university students to design the physical blueprints of the Global Waste Processor.

Let us test the waters of global innovation, ignite the creativity of the next generation, and bring this vision into immediate realization.

By mandating this automated mechanical shield across our global transit networks, our military bases, and our cities, we do more than just clean our streets.
We answer the highest call of this conference to explore new paths for the ‘Two Mountains Theory’.
We truly honor the spirit of World Ocean Day by stepping forward not just as witnesses to environmental decline, but as a true, unified ‘Guardian of the Blue.’

On behalf of the Light Millennium Global, we truly believe that #GlobalWasteProcessorForOurPlanet will be a truly “Game Changer” for the sake of marine, ecological sustainability and for the human race at large!

Before closing, I would like to thank very much to the Hebei University of Environmental Engineering, the Two Mountains Theory Think Tank Alliance for hosting this timely conference, co-organizers and the Conference Organizing Committee along with Prof. Yang and Prof. Ning.

I Thank You for your kind attention, and look forward to our further collaboration in this.

Wishing you ALL Happy World Ocean Day…

# #  #

(The plaque reads)

Think Tank Alliance for Research on the Theory of “Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains Are Invaluable Assets“

(Two Mountains Think Tank Alliance)

Center Designation: Member Unit

Date: June 5, 2026

Professor Jianchu Yang delivering a presentation at the podium during the “Safeguarding the Azure Blue · Striving for Strength toward the Ocean” Academic Seminar in Qinhuangdao, China (June 8, 2026).

Including “About the Author” & “References” (a total of 10 pages), please click for the PDF version here.

Special Thanks To:
Professor Jianchu Yang, CN
Professor Qiang Ning, CN

Hashtags: #GlobalWasteProcessorForOurPlanet, #HumanAdvancementFirst, #SafeguardingTheAzureBlue, #SaveOurOcean, #GuardiansOfTheBlue, #OceanDay, #OceanDecade, #SDG9, #SDG14, #SDG15, #MarineSustainability, #TwoMountainsTheory, #PlasticRecycling, #PlasticTreaty, #OceanRecovery, #PactForTheFuture, #UNEP, #GlobalGoals, #UNWithCivilSociety, #Lightmillennium, #LMGlobalOrg

REFERENCES:

1. High Seas Treaty BBNJ Agreement: https://www.un.org/bbnjagreement/en

2. Nice Declaration—’Our ocean, our future: united for urgent action
https://www.un.org/pga/wp-content/uploads/sites/109/2025/05/UNOC3-declaration-final.pdf

3. #V66: Summary of the #UNOC3 NEW WAYS TO EFFECTIVELY SCALE PLASTIC RECYCLING
 – Societal Change for the Collection of Plastic Can Create Significant Impacts Side Event #V66
https://www.lmglobal.org/2025/06/23/summary-of-the-unoc3-new-ways-to-effectively-scale-plastic-recycling-societal-change-for-the-collection-of-plastic-can-create-significant-impacts-side-event-v66/

4. #W175: ITS TIME TO REPORT BACK ON THE LMGLOBAL.ORG’s WATER ACTION COMMITMENT TO THE WATER ACTION DECADE
LMGlobal.Org Note: Initially, a #GlobalWasteProcessorForOurPlanet vision was introduced by B.Ü. during the 2023 UN Water Conference / Side Event #175 as one of the “Seven core #WaterAction ideas” toward contributing “WHAT IS YOUR COMMITMENT TO THE #WaterActionDecade?” concept.

5. #LightMillenniumTV-2023: What Is Your #WaterAction Commitment? WaterActionCommitments Through #Arts Part 2 of 2: https://vimeo.com/862218619

6. #LightMillenniumTV ~ #UN2023WateConference | SideEvent #175: What Is Your #WaterActionCommitment? Part 1 of 2: https://vimeo.com/856760322

7. #W175: LMGlobal.Org-Outcome: “Seven Core Water Action Ideas toward Water Awareness, Water Conscience, and Game Changers” Concept Successfully Delivered in NYC on March 21, 2023.
https://www.lmglobal.org/2023/04/06/lmglobal-org-seven-core-water-action-ideas-toward-water-awareness-water-conscience-and-game-changers-concept-successfully-delivered-in-nyc-on-march-21-2023/

8. 2025 – #UNOC3 Video links of “New Ways To Effectively Scale Plastic Recycling – Societal Change for the Collection of Plastic Can Create Significant Impacts”
Part 1 of 2: https://vimeo.com/1096410988

Part 2 of 2: https://vimeo.com/1097412812
9. UN launches Transport Decade with global commitments for sustainable, inclusive and resilient mobility (2026-2035)
https://www.un.org/en/desa-en/un-launches-sustainable-transport-decade

10. Norway – Envac Group, Envac City
https://www.envacgroup.com/envac-city/

11. Norway – Envac’s solutions: designed for cities, businesses, and communities
https://www.envacgroup.com/discover-the-envac-system/

12. Norway – Bergen: By opting for pipe-based waste collection instead of traditional bin-based collection, Bergen has become a global trailblazer.
https://www.envacgroup.com/us/projects/bergen

13. UN launches Transport Decade with global commitments for sustainable, inclusive and resilient mobility
https://www.un.org/en/desa-en/un-launches-sustainable-transport-decade

@2023 – 2026, The Light Millennium Global – www.lmglobal.org