How would it be? How would we live without recycling our waste? The answer is simple: we wouldn’t like it.
Garbage must go somewhere, so imagine a planet full of huge dumps. We generate a big amount of waste, close to 16,000 million kilograms a day! If the generation of waste is bigger than our ability to manage it, we will need large tracts of land to store all that garbage. It is something unthinkable.
This accumulated waste is also a source of greenhouse gases when it’s burned. And we already know what these emissions do to our climate, right? In addition, the necessary incineration of garbage also generates toxic gases, harmful to our health. The more garbage to incinerate, the more toxic gases and a more affected environment.
On the other hand, if we stop working to convert our waste and give it a new use, logically we will have to make use of new resources, taking ecosystems and natural habitats ahead of us in that effort. We exploit our planet more or more. Resources are not inexhaustible; this represents an obvious problem. And living in the present without thinking about future generations is a selfish attitude.
When we do not recycle, the waste we generate goes directly to the landfill, causing all these negative consequences; when we deposit it in the appropriate container, it is cleaned and transformed to have a new utility. And this generates many advantages, including reducing pollution, saving energy, obtaining cheaper raw materials, generating employment and promoting the circular economy.
Recycling challenges
Today, we celebrate World Recycling Day to raise awareness about the importance of this activity. Recycling is, today, the most effective way we have to reduce the amount of solid waste we generate, such as plastics, paper, glass, etc. Fortunately, in countries where there is the appropriate infrastructure for this, awareness is growing and citizens are gradually incorporating the habit of recycling.
However, the recycling industry also has important challenges ahead, to continue optimizing the process, such as the millions of tons of electronic or textile waste that are not yet recycled, baby diapers or the complexity of recycling tetra bricks, which both constitute compound waste that makes it difficult to separate the materials.
As citizens, we must bear in mind that it is much more efficient to separate waste at source than at the plant, so our role has a special importance to carry out this process efficiently.
For this, the first thing is that all the people must be aware of the importance of recycling and know how to do it so the waste is thrown into the trash correctly.
Household garbage, if possible, should be separated into five categories: organic waste (food scraps), plastics and containers (which should not contain food scraps), glass, paper and cardboard and other waste.
Recycling is a habit and people only have to make an effort at first to acquire it; Thus, in a few days or weeks it will become a part of our way of acting and it will be a daily gesture to contribute to less pollution of our planet. And given what was said at the beginning of this post, it’s worth it, isn’t it?
