Typically, after lunch at the mall you go to deposit the solid waste in the respective baskets; when you arrive, you don’t know which one to put it in, since, apparently, it doesn’t apply to any of the categories shown on the sign, so you decide to dump it in the ordinary basket and walk away a bit pensive, since you know how much you help the planet with the correct separation of waste.
So, in this list we want to tell you six basic things you should know about how to separate and properly manage waste from its source.
Be aware of the importance of properly separating waste
Good waste management brings many benefits; we are sure that when you know them, you will be motivated to separate them properly, this takes no more than five minutes.
- Environmental benefits: when you begin to worry about reusing what you use, you begin to consume much less, thus contributing to reduce the expenditure of natural resources to produce new objects. In addition, it increases the life of the landfills. In Colombia, for example, more than 7.5% of landfills have already run out of life.
- Economic benefits: by using solid waste as raw material, production costs are reduced. For example, aluminum is much more profitable to recycle than to process from scratch. Similarly, if you take the time to reuse your jam glass to make piggy banks, you and the planet will win; it’s all about creativity.
- Social benefits: in addition to avoiding health problems, it improves the quality of work of the people who are responsible for recycling and recovering this type of waste. On the other hand, environmental groups are motivated to work with those wastes that can be reused.
Have as your philosophy the “three Rs”: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
The great challenge that we have as humanity is to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in toilets or, unfortunately, in the oceans and other habitats. How do we achieve this? Simple! reduce the purchase of clothes, unnecessary electronics and single-use items, such as plastic bottles.
Now, reuse, if you are going to buy a plastic bottle, save it and keep using it to keep carrying your liquid. If you are not going to use it anymore, a good idea is to fill it with plastic or aluminum wrapping, for example, the mecato packaging. This way, you will give a new life to what you thought were simple waste, since you can give these bottles to companies that use them in construction as acoustic, thermal and even anti-seismic insulation.
If you must definitely discard the bottle, it is time to contribute to its recycling, depositing it in the indicated basket. In the next step we will explain you which one it is.
Learn to understand the colors of the baskets
Everything will be more practical if you start to memorize what the color of each pebble represents:
*Grey: here is the paper and cardboard.
*Green: ordinary waste, that is, that cannot be recycled.
*Blue: plastic and non-returnable bottles
*White: they are exclusive for glass.
*Beige: organic and biodegradable waste.
*Yellow: aluminum and metals.
*Red: we usually see them in hospitals for waste that may be hazardous, such as infectious substances or sharps.
Recycle paper correctly
We already know that paper goes in the gray bin and to recycle it properly, it is very important to remove the metal hooks or clips, in addition, it should not be dirty, with grease, food or any other substance that contaminates it, ie, toilet paper and napkins should go in the green bin.
Avoid that it is wrinkled and give a lot of importance to this type of recycling, since you can contribute significantly to reduce the cutting of trees. Did you know that to produce a ton of paper you need to cut down 14 trees?
Separates organic waste from ordinary waste:
One of the challenges when classifying is to differentiate organic or biodegradable waste, that is, waste that decomposes naturally and can therefore be recycled in the beige bin, from other ordinary waste that cannot be recycled and goes into the green bin.
Organic waste includes food scraps, vegetables, fruits and their skins, meat, eggs, plants, dried leaves, etc. Their natural decomposition is caused by the work of microorganisms or living organisms of which they are composed, responsible for transforming them into another type of matter, organic. All this category must be separated and deposited in the beige caneca.
On the other hand, ordinary waste is for example napkins, cardboard that is very contaminated, dirty or greasy paper, packages of chips and mecato packaging in general, toilet paper, wet wipes and diapers, non-returnable containers, icopor, cigarette butts, aluminum foil or carbon, among others that cannot be recovered. All this waste must go into the green bin.
Now you know that if you eat a hamburger and leave some, the food scraps go in the beige container and, the cardboard and napkins must go in the green one.