The Importance Of Waste Management: Why We Should All Care

Waste management is a critical issue in the modern world. Commonly, waste is generated in households, factories, construction sites, refineries and nuclear power plants. The increasing population and changing consumption trends have posed alarming threats to the environment, along with the improvement in lifestyle.

The importance of waste management must be known to people and businesses, as improper waste management can cause serious problems to human health and the environment. The ‘SWACHH BHARAT ABHIYAN’ (Clean India Campaign) has been a huge success, for which Hon. PM Modi was awarded the Global Goalkeeper Award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The campaign prohibits the open burning of waste, disposes of waste in landfills, and prohibits the disposal of waste on hills or in rivers.

Waste management is important because it helps protect the environment.

Waste management includes the handling and disposing of liquid and solid waste, its treatment, and recycling for further use. Many things must be considered when discussing waste management, such as disposal and recycling methods, avoidance and reduction methods, and transportation of waste. Waste management involves treating solid and liquid waste. The treatment also offers solutions for recycling items that would typically be categorized as trash. By segregating waste materials such as plastic, glass, and paper into different columns, new products can be created from them; thus, saving natural resources.

How do you dispose waste?

• Using common dustbin for all the waste
• Separating the dry / wet/ e waste
• Composting the wet waste
• Recycling all the waste

Centuries ago, people used to dispose of their waste by digging a hole into a far-off land area; however, this waste disposal technique was not very efficient because of the smaller population around that time. Due to the low population, waste production was less, making waste management easy. But now, due to the growing number of people, waste production has drastically increased, making disposal difficult. Nowadays, the waste produced includes non-biodegradable and inorganic elements. If this waste is disposed of in landfills, it will decompose unnaturally and will take a lot of time. The mismanagement of waste can cause water contamination, soil erosion, and air contamination. Many natural resources, such as trees, gas, and water, are being depleted. For example, paper, cupboards, paper cups, and many other products we use daily are made from trees.

Paper products can be recycled instead of cutting down new trees.

These little things have an immense impact in our universal battle to save the environment; all these products are recycled and used again. Apart from leaving a lot of waste, humanity pollutes the environment by producing various products; another point of focus is on pollution. Certain types of waste, like those from plastic factories, can be quite harmful and pollute the atmosphere with smoke considerably. Serious medical conditions in humans, animals, and even plants can result from bad waste management practices causing land and air pollution. An estimate of 8 million tons of plastic end up in oceans each year according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), leading to eutrophication and beach closures in many areas of the world where sewage treatment is not done properly.

Food Waste dumped into landfills produces methane gas due to breakdown without oxygen. Methane is a greenhouse gas and even more harmful than carbon dioxide. Methane is 84 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after being released, according to the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF). It absorbs sunlight, causing an increase in global temperature. In 2016, an estimated 1.6 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions were recorded as a result of solid waste discard (WHAT A WASTE 2.0). Approximately 50 percent of these emissions were the result of food waste. Approximately 2.4 billion tonnes of solid waste will not be managed by 2050. The efficient and proper disposal of all kinds of waste is facilitated by waste management. It reduces the toxic effects of inorganic and biodegradable elements present in waste on the environment, health, etc. It can also help reuse or recycle resources, such as paper, cans, glass, and so on.

As time goes on, waste management is becoming more important not just for environmental protection, but also as a growing industry for an economy. This is because when untreated waste is exposed to the air, it causes environmental hazards and also impacts the infrastructure. Recycling the materials businesses produce can save them money and decrease their waste disposal costs. It would be easier for the company to find waste management services and minimize their transportation costs if they had knowledge about the different kinds of waste they were creating. This would help environmental sustainability by minimizing emissions of greenhouse gases and preserving natural resources. This would also promote the good image of the business. Restaurants can provide perishable food items to the needy instead of wasting them and causing harm to the environment. It is very important to dispose of harmful wastes appropriately and carefully, and not to mix them in with the normal waste coming out of your home or office. That way, the planet will remain a beautiful and safe place to live in today and in the future.