It is not about just the environment that we would have to worry about.  Wastes not properly disposed can cause huge health risks to people or communities surrounding the area where the wastes were disposed.  The United Nations Development Programme estimates that there are five million fatalities every year because of not properly disposing wastes.

Improper waste disposal could increase dangers of increasing vermin and pests.  They could spread in the community, a common disease called dengue brought by mosquito bites is very dangerous disease often times associated with stagnant water and piles of garden wastes.  People could also be vulnerable to leptospirosis or infection that you could get from vermin urine and feces.  Litters like broken glasses or scrap of metals can also cause tetanus.

Another danger about improper waste management, would be hazardous materials and poison which could affect the environment and the community.  Medical or health care wastes can have radioactive isotopes which could get into water and result into polluted bodies of water where your kids swim.  Aside from health care wastes, human wastes can also be very dangerous when disposed improperly, especially if they come from people who are suffering from certain diseases.  This could also contaminate sources of water.

Unkempt yards and streets could also give an impression about the people who live in the area.  It could affect the economy of the community, it is unlikely that entrepreneurs would like to invest in a community that does not invite security and safety.

Most people think that waste management is all about spending sizeable amount.  Actually, it does not have to be like that.  Not managing and dumping wastes irresponsibly tends to be more costly.  Think about the loss of income from not trying to save on equipment and appliances.

Disposing hazardous wastes is another major problem.  Hazardous wastes are actually very much present in our household.  According to U.S. EPA, there are about 1.8 million tons of household hazardous waste being disposed every year.  And most homeowners are not even conscious that they are storing hazardous chemicals in their cupboards.

Waste management could actually be summed up in three simple words: reduce, reuse and recycle.  In United Kingdom, the country’s recycling efforts was able to help reduce 10-15 million tonnes of CO2 emission every year.   Homeowners and other institutions could start by segregating trash, monitoring quantities and kinds of wastes being disposed, and making sure that they are being transported out of your site properly.

Waste management training could be given to employees, workers and staff. Having a waste management plan and people committed in carrying it out, will make the plan successful.

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Waste management is essentially the systematic handling of garbage. It involves the proper way of collection, transportation, and disposal of waste materials. Waste management has been a significant issue addressed in the modern and industrialized generation largely owing to the fact that more waste materials are produced today than during the early generations, a critical increase resulting from population explosion and industrial revolution.

While it seems to be a modern response to waste production, waste management is not at all a new practice. Records from all over the world showed that early people had a way of managing and regulating their garbage. One of the common ways of waste management before was digging pits to contain solid wastes. As the civilization progressed, waste management practices became more regulated. As far back as 500 BC, for instance, there were existing policies in Athens Greece that required people to dispose of their waste materials in areas at least one mile from city limits. In 1388, the English Parliament in England banned waste disposal into the water systems. And in 1885, the United States built its first incinerator.

Waste management methods and procedures have improved since then, with emphasis on their relevance to modernity and quantity of produced waste. Incineration, for instance, is still a common process of waste disposal. With the use of incinerators, waste materials are combusted and are converted to energy. This waste-to-energy benefit is proven helpful to many industries, although there have been environmental and health concerns over the creation and emission of dangerous pollutants and chemicals during the burning process.

Using landfills is also a common method of waste disposal. Landfills are basically a big piece of lot where truckloads of waste are gathered and buried. In some countries, using landfills is the most common way of waste disposal primarily because they are relatively cheap and don’t require intricate machineries. Since landfills can potentially attract vermin and emit dangerous landfill gas, landfills have to be well-designed and credibly managed.

Waste management is also targeting to minimize waste, an effort that eventually gave way to the global campaign to recycle. Recycling means reprocessing some or all parts of an item to make a new or completely different product. Scrap metals and papers are two of the most recycled materials today. To date, several people and organizations are committed to recycling, whose collaborated efforts are contributing to proper waste management.

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This is because in waste minimization, control and management would go back to the waste producers themselves (individual persons, companies, manufacturers, factories) and not only on the waste materials.

Minimization

Traditionally, waste management processes the waste material after it had been created. From there, other waste management systems take place: re-use, recycling, composting, incineration, energy conversion, etc.

Waste minimization takes the process one step further back. It actually is one system that includes the process itself and the policy of simply reducing the amount of waste generated to the barest minimum by the primary producer itself – a single person or a company.

Waste sources

The main sources of waste vary from country to country. In developed countries in Europe, most waste comes from the manufacturing industry, agriculture, construction and demolition industries. In developing or under-developed countries, a big part of waste comes from the households and society at large.

Waste minimization processes

The following are some of the waste minimization processes at work these days.

• Both waste minimization and resource maximization of products can begin at the design stage. A product’s number of components can be reduced to make it easier to take apart for repairs or recycling. At the design stage, a product may be steered away from using toxic materials, or reduce its volume.

• Minimization of waste and maximization of resources again go hand-in-hand in optimizing the use of raw materials. Patterns for a dress can be cut in such a way that there is a minimum of unused portions in the clothing materials.

• Another way is the reuse of scrapped materials back into the production process. In industries like paper manufacture, damaged rolls and other scraps are returned and incorporated again to the paper-making process. In plastics manufacture, cut-offs and other scraps are re-incorporated into new products.

• This is for products specifically designed for its intended use. Packaging materials will be a waste if for reasons of, say cost-cutting, the quality is reduced and the food it is intended to protect is spoiled instead.

• Through improved quality control and monitoring, the number of product rejects is kept to a minimum. Increasing inspection frequency and the number of inspection points via automated and continuous monitoring equipments is now integrated into existing systems.

• Shipping raw materials directly to the places of manufacture reduces accidents, less protective wrappings and enclosures and other safety measures and devices designed for long circuitous handling and shipment.

Benefits and other considerations

Waste minimization is related to the efforts of minimizing the use of resources and energy by way of fewer materials and efficient designs, for instance.

This also entails thorough knowledge of the production process, continuous tracking of the material’s life cycle from cradle (extraction/creation) to grave (waste). This is feasible in large manufacturing industries starting from the plants to the stores all the way to the consumer.

Today, waste management is employing waste minimization as yet another reliable ammunition in the fight against pollution and environmental hazards in the complex business of waste disposal and management.

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Different waste management businesses would offer jobs as salesmen, customer service representatives, drivers, pickup personnel and field waste characterization specialists.  They are very important in completing the kind of waste management services that homeowners and industry owners need.

What exactly do each waste management staff do? Just like in any kind of business, sales personnel makes sure that company services would be able to reach target customers.   Sales personnel can promote waste management services online, on foot or through mail. Companies should also ensure that there are customer service representatives that would be readily available to help customers. Big waste management service providers and companies would have a number of customer service reps that would handle complaints, service changes, and upgrades.

Mechanics, drivers and service pickup personnel are also indispensable in a waste management company.  There is a need to maintain trucks and deal with repairs and inspections.  Again, the number of mechanics, drivers and other personnel would depend on the scope and size of the company and its service area.

There are waste management specialists who ensure that the business is following regional, state and national laws.  There are different regulations that would ensure that waste management businesses would dispose wastes properly and would not pose any dangers to the environment and the community.

Waste management jobs are not only available in waste management businesses.  Institutions like hospitals, medical clinics, and pharmaceutical laboratories would employ a waste management officer.   Waste management officers would organize and manage waste disposal.  They would also be responsible in monitoring waste quantities and at times spearhead a project on reducing and recycling wastes.

Government agencies would also have waste management officers.  In the United States about .75 tonnes of waste is generated by an average American every year.  In a city, imagine how many tonnes of waste is generated every year?  There is definitely a need for an officer to implement trainings and programmes about waste disposal in communities.

A waste management officer would also need to have knowledge in collating statistics and compiling reports that would be submitted to senior managers or government agencies.  His task would also involve budget formulation and control for waste disposal.  They would also have to deal with investigating any claims about illegal waste dumping.  Part of their responsibilities is spearheading research and developing environmental technologies that would help in reducing wastes.

It can sometimes be difficult to find west management jobs, you could start looking jobs in different waste management websites.  Online employment sites are great places to look for job opportunities.  You could also start contacting the local waste management department and ask if there are any waste management positions available.  You could ask about the hiring processes and the requirements that are needed for the position.

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The practice was carried on to war periods until it became a significant part in the modern approach to waste management. But unlike before, recycling efforts today are not pushed by the scarcity of resources; rather, they are a decent response to environmental issues. Waste management and recycling, specifically, are attempts to preserve the environment and protect all living things. And as the environment is continuously being threatened by massive waste production, recycling is hoped to be a global endeavor.

Why recycle?

Landfills and incinerators are the most common destinations of collected waste. Although proven helpful in waste disposal, these two have been widely criticized for their environmental effects. Burying waste in landfills particularly allows for the release of methane gas, a type of greenhouse gas that is even more dangerous than carbon dioxide. Aside from that, landfills can leach other hazardous materials and may cause water pollution. And because waste materials are known to take many years to decompose, with some requiring hundreds to thousands of years, more landfill space are needed, which are becoming expensive and scarce. Incinerators, meanwhile, similarly emit greenhouse gas and other toxic chemicals that endanger human health and trigger global climate changes. Recycling responds to these problems by decreasing the volume of waste sent to landfills and incinerators. Rather than disposed of, waste materials are turned into something more useful.

By making new products out of used products, recycling contributes to the conservation of energy. Generally, it takes less energy to process an already processed material. For instance, the production of paper using recycled materials uses 40% less of the time needed to make the same product from virgin materials. This energy conservation also provides small openings for water and air pollution. In the same way, recycling significantly reduces the consumption of raw materials, which naturally contributes to the conservation of resources. Recycling a ton of newspaper, for instance, saves 12 trees.

But aside from the environmental benefits, the economical benefits of recycling are also one reason it has been practiced in many countries. On a national scale, recycling can create a lot of jobs that offer decent wages. And with the recycling industry becoming even more successful, more businesses are expected to grow and provide more job opportunities. Individuals, on the other hand, can make small business through recycling projects. They can create new products, such as bags and cards, from scraps and sell them for a small price. Selling scrap materials to certain organizations and individuals, who in turn will make recycled items for reselling, is as well a good way to earn money.

Buying recyclable and recycled products is also encouraged to support the recycling industry and as a whole to protect the environment. The symbol of three moving arrows on a product signifies it is recyclable. Such arrows represent the process of recycling: from becoming a waste to reprocessing to reselling. And this symbol coined the term “close the loop,” an accurate representation of waste management and recycling.

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Each of these methods has its own good and bad points in terms of efficiency, cleanliness in relation to the environment, and economic feasibility. There has not been a total winner in any of these waste disposal methods.

Recycling comes nearest because it is clean (no harmful emissions or toxic waste discharges) it is efficient (does not need big spaces) and cheap (little or no investments).

What is recycling, and what are its advantages over the other waste disposal methods?

Recycling

In absolute terms, recycling is actually not a disposal system. It is the reuse of materials that had been disposed of as waste. Theoretically, recycling is the continued use of materials for the same purpose.

In practice, recycling is the extension of the useful life of the material, but it can be in some other form. Most of today’s recyclable materials are post-consumer waste (empty glass and plastic bottles, used paper and cartoons, etc.)

The most common items that are recycled in industrialized nations are aluminum soda cans, aerosol cans, plastic and glass bottles and jars, old newspapers and magazines, and cardboards or used carton boxes.

New materials

When paper is recycled, the fibers lose their length, thereby making it less useful for high grade paper (book or bond paper, etc). Most of them are used to make cartoons, low-grade newsprint and other low-grade paper products. Some types of plastic are composed of the same type of materials and are relatively easy to recycle into new products.

As an alternative to plain garbage disposal, recycling is useful in the sense that it does not add to the waste in landfills, and it becomes another material resource.

Resource recovery

Today, experts and the enlightened populace have acknowledged that simply disposing of waste materials is unsustainable in the long run. The supply of raw materials from nature is finite and cannot last.

In waste management, there is a new idea that considers waste materials as a resource to be exploited and used, and not the old concept of looking at them as a challenge to be managed or disposed of. It is called resource recovery.

Resource recovery can take different forms. One is the materials might be extracted and recycled accordingly, or some of them are to be converted into energy (electricity).

Costs and economics

Used materials have to compete with new materials in manufacturing. Most often, collection costs of recyclables are higher than costs of new materials.

However, not many are aware that it usually requires less energy, less water, and less other resources to recycle materials than produce the product from new materials. (Recycling 1000 kilos of aluminum cans save 5000 kilos of bauxite ore to be mined, and 95% of the energy to refine it.)

The economics of a successful recycling process depends on manufacturers making products from recovered materials and consumers buying these products.

Recycling is one method of waste management that is nearest to the ideal – less or no actual physical wastage, low costs, and no environmental damage.

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There are studies conducted showing that about 90 percent of wastes disposed every year mainly come from industrialized countries, which is about 325-375 million tons of toxic and hazardous waste.  Countries are expressing their concern about the rising number of wastes being disposed every year.  According to the United Nations, there are 60 percent of countries worldwide expressing their waste concern in the 1992 Earth Summit.

Improper waste disposal can cause big problems to human health.  The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) states that there are about five million fatalities every year because of diseases related to improper waste disposal.  For example, stagnant water and pile of wastes in the backyard could actually be a source of dengue, tetanus or vermin related disease like leptospirosis.

Not all management practices are the same, industrial waste management would of course be different from household waste disposal.  Urban and rural waste management are also different.  Which why there are people who are primarily employed as waste specialists officers and whose job is to ensure that wastes are properly disposed.

Every county would also have their own waste disposal method.  There are government agencies and local government units that provide waste collection services, they would often have partnerships with private waste management companies.  For example, in Australia, every curb would have three collection bins like one for the recyclables, general and garden wastes.  Households are encouraged to start composting to reduce wastes.  This is the same waste collection done in Canada.  In Taipei, households and industries are charged for the volume of their wsastes produced.

In waste management there is something known as the waste hierarchy or the 3 Rs:  reduce, reuse and recycle.  This 3 Rs remains to be the basis of waste management programs, technologies and strategies being developed.  Government programs implemented are based on these principles, for example in the United States there are states that would implement regulations of non-collection of yard wastes to encourage households to recycle.

Another program implemented by the government would be the extended product responsibility or the EPR.  This is a strategy that would ensure that manufacturers would be responsible for their products after they were disposed by the consumers.  The method used in Taiwan is also known as the Polluter Pays Principle.  The polluter would pay for the impact of their waste on the environment.

Some industries find waste management and environmental responsibility good business opportunity for their own businesses.  They report increased efficiency, energy reduction costs and even getting local and national government incentives since the government offers tax rebates for industries that would use “green” technology.

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People’s needs for survival became competitive. As population grew, needs became more heightened, and material resources for everything had to be increased. Waste became an important item to be solved.

Disposal methods

Waste management is the collection, transport, and processing of waste materials. Generally, this is to reduce the ill-effects on health, the environment or maybe simple aesthetics.

The ill-effects of random and indiscriminate waste disposal had impacted on people’s health and the environment. This led to other practices of disposal that includes recycling and the recovering of resources.

Landfill

In most countries, landfill is the most commonly-practiced of all the waste disposal systems. This is because it is the most inexpensive among all others. Properly managed and designed, the practice can be sanitary and safe.

Poorly managed landfills, however, produce adverse byproducts: leaching of toxic fluids into the ground, noxious odor caused by organic breakdown, destruction of surface vegetation, and the production of greenhouse gases.

Incineration

This waste disposal method involves the combustion of waste materials (sometimes called “thermal treatment”) producing heat, gas, steam and ashes. Usually, this is used to dispose of hazardous waste materials (like dangerous wastes from hospitals). What makes it questionable is the fact that it releases gas pollutants.

In some countries, the heat generated in incinerators is used as energy to generate in turn steam and electricity.

Recycling

Plastics, glass, PVC and those made of the same materials are collected and recycled into new products. In progressive countries like Australia, recycling is successfully implemented by the government and the cooperation of more than 90% of the population.

Composting

In composting, organic waste materials (food scraps, paper, and other bio-degradable materials) are decomposed in a controlled environment. Organic end-products are used as fertilizers, mulch soil, etc. Waste gas (methane) is captured to generate electricity.

Waste reduction

This campaign is being vigorously pushed in many industrialized countries. People are encouraged to reuse second-hand products, repair broken items, avoiding disposable products, and designing new products that can be refillable or reusable.

Waste hierarchy

This is the three Rs in waste management concept – reduce, reuse, recycle.  Today, it still remains a potent cornerstone in waste minimization strategies. The simple concept is to maximize a product’s benefits and generate the most minimum of waste from it.

Awareness campaign

Seen from a global perspective, educational awareness campaigns in waste management are becoming crucial. Several schools and universities have adapted the Taillories Declaration into their curricula.

The Tailloires Declaration is about the speed of environmental degradation caused by pollution and depletion of natural resources. It details the perils as well as the means to combat this very imminent global danger.

Other waste management concepts

These include EPR or extended producer responsibility which means they are also responsible for their products not only during manufacture but also after use.

The PPP (Polluter Pays Principle) means the producer of a pollutant will have to pay. In waste management, this is the requirement of a waste generator for the proper disposal of waste.

As the world becomes more and more industrialized and consumption of resources increases, so will the production of waste increases. Waste management is a crucial concern for everyone.

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Solving waste management problems do not have to take you anywhere else, you could start solving trash problems at home.  Small contributions like this could go a long way.  About 25 percent of our wastes are yard trimmings or food scraps.  Although, a lot of people are learning to recycle and reuse plastic, metal, glass and other similar items, biodegradable stuff are nearly not recycled at all.

A great way to recycle food scrap is having a compost bin or by vermicomposting.   Vermicomposting is another way of composting.  Worms are used in the process to produce vermicompost, a rich soil which is a great way to fertilize a garden.  There are different kinds of worms used in vermicomposting, like the red worms, white worms, and earthworms.   These worms would produce vermicast which are worm castings or worm humus.  Worms used in vermicomposting can be available from vermicompost enthusiasts or from a supplier.

Worms can be eat a lot of your food scraps and wastes, like vegetables, fruits, coffee grounds, tea, and even eggshells.  However, avoid feeding them with bones, dairy products, spicy food, oily food and animal manure.  Beddings for vermicompost bins can also be made out of household materials like newspaper and cardboard.

Different type of containers could work, as long as they would protect the worms from too warm or cold weather conditions.  Worms are comfortable in temperatures ranging from 55 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Most commonly used bins are those made of wood or plastic.  A 12-inch deep compost bin can accommodate about a pound or 1,000 worms.   Odour does not have to be a problem.  A vermicompost bin which is done properly will not give out any smell.

There are many benefits associated with vermicompost.  The vermicast is 10 to 20 higher in nutrients compared with other organic material used to enrich soil.  It can also improve the soil’s water holding capacity.  Enriching the soil could enhance plant growth and the crops yielded.  If you have a vegetable patch, this would be a great way to reduce food waste and increase productivity from your patch using chemical-free fertilizers.

In the United States, there are states like Illinois, who are banning landscape waste in landfills.  Vermicomposting is a great way to address disposal of these kinds of waste. Aside from that, there are some who would use vermicomposting as another source of income.  They would sell vermicast, it is often times called “Black Gold” because of its high nutrient content.  Others would supply worms to fishermen or become a local supplier.

Using vermicomposting as a waste management method for food scraps and other biodegradable materials at home is surely a win-win solution.  You get to reduce waste and benefit from it, whether it is short term or in the long run.

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