Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

There is no efficient way to sort garbage from recycling until it reaches the recycling center. Most recycling centers now have elaborate machinery that identifies and separates out each of the recyclable materials from the garbage. Some lower tech recycling centers still use human sorting before using the machinery, but these typically do not handle any garbage. Many companies found that the difference in recycling capabilities causes enough confusion that people frequently attempt to recycle materials that their area does not cover. To add to the confusion, companies that once recycled colorized glass or cardboard, no longer do or used to recycle 1’s and 2’s now only recycle 1’s, etc…It started to make more sense to just treat all recycling as garbage and invest in a complex sorting machine that uses industrial processes to separate recycling materials from garbage while beginning the reduction process for the garbage before transport to the dump for incineration, storage or burial. It is still worth separating the recyclables however, since bagged garbage is treated immediately as non recyclable material and is not processed in the same way.

The Expert answers:

The basic principles of waste management are reduce, reuse, and recycle. Once we accomplish these, environmental conditions will greatly improve.

You can start at home. Practice these principles and encourage your neighbors to do so.

Segregation of wastes are also important in waste management. Here in my city, the garbage collectors collect biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes on certain days of the week. If you do not segregate your wastes, they will not pick it up unless you sort them out yourself. You will have to wait for the next collection day. It is sort of telling you that “your garbage is your responsibility”.

Hope this helps!

The Expert answers:

Waste managment term is a broad term can apply on managment of many different kind of wastes it may be liquid or may be solid. Managment often employ following techniques
1. Reduction
2. Reuse
3. Recycle

its also called 3Rs appraoch. Reduction producing less waste it may be through treatment, using less resources, incineration etc.

Reuse mean using the things for other purposes without changing its form.

Recycle means total remakeover. Mean paper recycling etc.

There are other appraoches too like lanfilling, composting, using waste for energy etc.

The Expert answers:

Waste management/recycling and related industries are the new future industries. In Brazil the industry is booming and making instant millionaires. The low level recycling and infrastructure management is producing sustainable energy to homes and factories. Nuclear power is very risky because of accidents, and countries are unlikely to use their own lands for safe dumping.

The Expert answers:

Movement and deposition of waste is a geographical issue because it is moved from a source point to a collecting point to a final resting location for disposal.

Waste is moved around between cities, counties, states and sometimes countries. Transportation systems including: trucks, trains are ships are utilized to move waste which contribute to more waste and pollution.

We are a wasteful society and need to recycle more packaging and container products in order to reduce waste in landfills. If we can reduce waste and wasteful packaging perhaps we can reduce the movement and transportation of this waste which caused the problem first.

See the links below for additional information. Hope this helps.

The Expert answers:

Recycling
reduction of waste
reuse

The Expert answers:

In solid waste management a primary health benefit is the control of vermin that spread disease. By consolidating residential and some types of commercial wastes, then using appropriate disposal technology habitat is reduced, or nearly eliminated, for rodents and insects that otherwise pose a public health risk. Another health benefit is the control of disposal methods that prevent indiscriminate burning or burial methods that could pose long term and acute health risks.

Also solid waste management allows for recycling that reduces the amount of solids for disposal. The environmental benefits of recycling are self evident.

Industrial waste management is meant to control all waste streams, solid and liquid, that can pose a risk to public health and the environment. Examples of where there was no industrial waste management are the various brown fields and toxic waste dumps through out all industrialized nations. Unfortunately, even with regulations for industrial waste management, many industries spurred by profits, ignore the need to responsibly dispose of their waste.

The Expert answers:

Waste management is the sorting, recycling and proper disposal of waste. A study even said that proper waste management can control greenhouse gas emissions.

The Expert answers:

“The Zero Waste Management (ZWM) extends the principles of recycling to form a circular system where as much of the original material as possible is reused. Discarded materials are not seen as garbage in need of disposal but as valuable resources in need of new application.”

“Chemist Paul Palmer, who was the first to use the term in the mid-1970s, says that zero waste depends on the redesigning of industrial, commercial, and consumer goods. While recycling contents itself with attempting to deal with goods after they have become waste materials.”

“Dr. Metodio Palaypay, a former professor of the UP College of Medicine and resident at the UP Diliman Health Service, is a pioneer of waste management in the country and member of the National Solid Waste Management Commission. ZWM, according to Dr. Palaypay, is essentially embodied in Republic Act No. 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act. RA 9003 sets guidelines and targets for solid waste avoidance and volume reduction through source reduction and waste minimization measures, including composting, recycling, re-use, recovery, and green charcoal process before collection, treatment, and disposal in appropriate and environmentally sound solid waste management facilities. It mandates local government units (LGUs) to set up an ecology center in every barangay and segregation of wastes. Moreover, it specifically prohibits open burning and open dumpsites.”

“To fast-track the implementation of RA 9003, the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR), the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC), and the Earth Day Network Philippines Inc. Teamed up with various environmentalist groups and non-government organizations to launch the “Zero Basura Olympics: A Race to Conquer Garbage in 300 Days”. ”

“The environmentalist groups who are working with the DENR and NSWMC are currently doing the rounds to conduct seminars on ZWM. Last August 28, for instance, the Zero Waste Recycling Movement of the Philippines sponsored a lecture at the UP Integrated School. According to Prof. Armando Basug, aside from waste segregation in the offices and classrooms, the UPIS also operates an organic farm to support the school’s zero waste management program.”