Manage your waste.

Waste management has been the nightmare of the world, which is still struggling to figure out how to.  We being the biggest offenders expect government to solve, which is a representative of ourselves. We have not found a way to solve all the waste we generate. Waste management is the biggest disaster waiting to happen in our country while we are clueless about it. Indians claim to be very clean, while they dirty the neighborhood. Only the house seen by others is clean, rest will be rotten and they complain.

We generate lot of waste. We have waste from paper, plastic, food and many more. We put them all in to a bag which is collected by a garbage collector in some places. Rest dump in to the dumpster which is nearby. Since everybody throws everything in to one bag and is discarded in to the dumpster, we do not know the problem that is causing in terms of solving the waste. And the problems which are associated with it.

We can help the society, environment and country by being responsible. All it needs is simple discipline. In this country if you don’t help yourself, nobody else will. We may end up dead if we are waiting for our rights. If you want to live better, you better help yourself.  We can help ourselves by simple waste management.

Divide the waste into three to four categories like paper, plastic, wet waste and the rest. Sort the paper first. Every paper that comes in to your house should have a place to go. The envelopes can be opened well and good ones can be stored, which can be used to store many items for future use by labeling them. Rest of them should be put among the newspapers. Unimportant papers printed on one side can be filed to use the empty side later, either by the kids to paint or yourselves as a rough paper.  Confidential papers which have to be thrown should be discarded by local factors at your discretion or can be shredded or cut in to pieces and used among the wet waste. Every paper can be folded to a decent extent and stored along with the newspapers. The extra paper may not fetch you much but they go to the right place, recycling unit.

Plastic waste, aluminum cans, bottles and non degradable waste is stored in a large bin, which is sold to the paper guy, which will fetch you few bucks. We usually let the maid handle this, letting her sort and sell where she gets few bucks. Plastic covers can be folded to their original shape and placed in a box. These can be reused later.

The uncooked vegetable waste should be stored in a container and left it in the backyard. The uncooked vegetable waste dries up and does not stink. It can be used for composting or can be used in the garden filling the areas dug up especially for these. Or you can combine the garden waste like leaves and flowers and pass it on to the garbage collector.

Wet waste is the biggest culprit which is a nuisance. Decomposing the food waste and others cause bad odours and invite unwanted insects. These have to be discarded daily with a plastic bag. This is an ecological disaster and is expensive. Instead of throwing the wet waste daily you can use the other means. Food waste can be collected at the kitchen sink, by simple means. One container is kept dedicated to fill the food waste by everyone at the sink. Everybody walks in and empties their food waste in to the container before either washing or dumping their plates. Along with this throw away food and wet waste is combined. At the end of the day, the waste is washed by water by sieving. The waste is stored in closed lid container and put in the refrigerator. If the waste is too big it can be discarded on the same day or the next. Otherwise it is stored till it gets accumulated to a certain extent.  It can be disposed off in two ways, either to a dumpster in a bag or without depending on the service given in your place. Or it can be used for composting. There are simple ways of composting in the country please find them online. This way your kitchen will not stink and you do not have to dispose garbage every day.

You may find millions of items which cannot be divided in the above way. When you get the fundamentals right, you know how to manage. These are the basic ideas you should work on. Then you can help. Our government institutes have not gone way ahead in waste management. Let’s go ahead of them and be prepared. I know we don’t see that happening, neither do I see people following whatever I am talking. You know why we don't care, because garbage is not dumped around our house. But it still has to be dumped around somebody's house. They can't fight and should we care ?

PS: All the pictures are copied from Google search for illustrations only.