Humans are the only species who do some irreversible damage to our environment. Every other living creature helps maintain the food chain and the ecosystem except us. 

Most nations in Europe have already taken steps to ensure that our waste is not dumped into the environment. They take steps to separate the garbage and wherever possible recycle it for the betterment of mankind. They even have laws which forbid people from dumping electronic waste into landfills. Similarly companies are restricted from using  certain chemicals and heavy metals like lead in their products. These are being done to prevent ground water contamination.

What do we do with our waste?

Image Courtesy : jasco.com.au

Most people do not encourage separation of waste material at home or even collect garbage in an effective manner. Food leftovers, vegetable waste is all combined with other garbage and piled into the plastic containers which are found in streets or on the streets too.

What we try through this post is to try and inculcate some common details, which if followed can reduce the amount of waste disposed from one’s home, help save our nation’s resources and protect the environment which has to be inhabited by our children and grandchildren.

• Encourage use of dust-bins in all rooms of home, not just the balcony or kitchen. This alone would lead to selective separation of junk in your home. If this is followed, almost exclusively the kitchen waste bin would have only food related waste items , living rooms have probably lot of paper wastage and so on.
• Use waste-bin disposable plastic bags which are available in leading supermarkets. These plastic bags are designed to disintegrate easily and would not pollute the environment. Also using such bags would keep your bins clean and make collecting junk easier.
• Dispose waste in two separate bags from home and please tie the top of these bags. This would eliminate foul smell on the streets and also keep the flies and rodents in check.
• We Indians already believe in “Raddiwala” , so recycling is not an issue for  paper , glass and plastic bottles. Make sure you do not throw as much of paper as possible. Try to give them off to these shopkeepers.
• For those who have a small patch of garden or so, use the vegetable waste as a composite for the plants. It is an excellent nutrient and helps you grow your own mini vegetable mart ! Check out this post and this from Sudarsan.
• Do not dispose batteries and similar material onto regular garbage. If possible when you are staying in an apartments, try to have a common box to throw batteries and electronic waste. These can by picked up separately by the cleaning agencies and handled appropriately.
• Teach Young children the value of recycling and wastage. They are the next generation who would make a huge difference.

Try to think of the streets as part of your home. No one in their right mind would dirty their homes right?

Hope this post encourages you to handle waste more efficiently at your homes. Your comments and criticism would help us improve our content.

have a great weekend.