The world housed a population of 7 billion. With every passing second, the population of the world is increasing at a rapid rate. With the increase in population, the waste disposed by us has also been increasing. In the span of few years if the waste is not disposed off efficiently, we will have to face adverse consequences.
Here is where the need of waste management arises,. With the increase in population, the basic needs have increased. They put an exorbitant pressure on our resources. But the waste generated is not treated properly before it’s disposal in the environment.
If we take a closer look at the situation, we will notice that waste is the actual cause of problems like pollution. This generates a chain reaction in the environment and causes many other problems in turn. Waste can be in solid, liquid or gaseous forms.
All of these pollute our environment adversely and causes severe harm to it. The solid waste which is generated in households and industries is disposed off carelessly without any treatment. These days, the Municipal Corporation has made efforts to reduce waste and counter it.
It sends cars to pick up wastes and get them emptied in big landfills so as to avoid dumping waste at different places which are not meant to be dirtied. The amount of waste we generate needs to be controlled so that we can live a disease-free, pollution free and a clean and hygienic life.
Waste management begins at home. The first efforts should be advanced by household themselves so as to manage the waste they produce on a daily basis. Two kinds of dustbins should be installed at all places namely blue and green.
The green dustbins should be sued for disposing wastes which can decay and decompose. For e.g. kitchen wastes, paper, jute, cloth etc. this ensures that the soil is not polluted due to wastes that do not decompose. The landfills where decomposed wastes are dumped can later be converted into a garden, park or some forest.
In contrast, the blue dustbins should be used to dispose off wastes that cannot be decomposed and thy hinder the decomposition of other wastes.
Things like plastic, glass and PVC sheets cannot be dumped into landfills because they do not water seep into the soil and hinder the decay and decomposition process.
They increase the soil pollution. Instead this kind of waste should be sent back to recycling factories so that they can be recycled into entirely new products.
At any cost, waste should not be incinerated or dumped into water bodies. None of these is a clean method to dump the wastes. When waste is burnt, it releases residual ashes. It pollutes the atmosphere adversely as when waste is burnt; it increases the content of particulate matter in the air.
This particulate matter sticks in the respiratory pipe and the lungs,. This causes many problems like respiratory problems, thinning of blood and various other problems. On the other hand, dumping wastes into water is certainly the worst idea ever. It pollutes our water bodies.
There are many people who still depend on natural sources for their water consumption because they don’t have access to clean drinking water. They depend on rivers and ponds; and here we are polluting their source of survival.
So, the most efficient way of waste management is following the 4R’s. Now what are these 4R’s? The 4R’s are refuse, recycle, reduce and reuse. Previously, there were only 3R’s to follow- reduce, reuse and recycle.
But with the time passing on, we needed to realize the importance of one more ‘R’ in the process of waste management i.e. Refuse. Now you might be thinking what is exactly ‘Refuse’? It is refusing the products that cause harm to the environment and instead finding some other feasible alternatives to that product.
If you reduce the usage of a certain product, you can help in reducing the waste generated. If the demand of a certain product is decreased, it’s supply will also be affected. So, if the public refuses to use some product due to environmental concerns it can certainly help in managing waste effectively.
Now we will discuss about the other ‘R’s’. We are gonna now discuss about ‘reduce’. I get it when we say that waste cannot be completely eliminated. Because, in actual it is very difficult to completely eliminate waste. If you will live on this planet, you will generate waste.
Even your excreta is waste. But you can reduce the waste generated by your consulted efforts. Like instead of disposing off waste clothes, you could probably sell them and contribute reduction of wastes. Another way that someone can probably manage their waste is ‘reuse’ the items.
We should extract maximum worth from them. Also, it helps to reduce waste. Suppose, we purchase a bag and after using it once, we dispose it off. But after some time, we purchase a new bag and dispose it off again. This cycle goes on and on.
But wouldn’t it have been better if we would have purchased one bag and reused it again and again. This will serve us from disposing the waste haphazardly and will also save our money and natural resources.
Lastly, we are left with the option of recycling. Recycling basically mean using the waste material as raw material so as to produce new goods out of it. Recycling helps us to sue article again and again but in different utilities and capacity. For e.g. plastic and glass bottles can be recycled in factories to produce some other articles of utility.
There are some wastes which cannot be disposed of safely like nuclear wastes, chemical wastes, paints which contain harmful chemicals like arsenic etc. into the environment.
Governments of many countries are trying to find optimal solutions to dispose such wastes. For now, these wastes are stored in large containers and buried deep into the barren lands so that they cannot affect the mankind.
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