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If you live in a city, the nitty-gritty of human consumption and waste becomes an abstract concept.
Refuse goes into your black wheelie bin and then gets whisked away by the city’s waste removal service. You might think of the waste removal men when you donate money for their Christmas fund, or when you get stuck behind the garbage truck in a narrow road.
Every now and again you might suffer the inconvenience of piled up garbage if you’ve forgotten to put the bin out for collection, but generally rubbish is just that: rubbish.
To be discarded and forgotten about.
Until you drive past a landfill…
And then you see what happens when humans consume without thought or care.
The reality
Increasingly our rivers, oceans, land and air are becoming more and more polluted – and it’s not just us who will be paying the price.
Birds, insects, wildlife and marine life are all bearing the brunt of our thoughtless intake and flagrant wasting.
It’s a pretty depressing picture, isn’t it? But what can we do about it?
Be more conscious
Firstly, we need to change the way we look at things. No more mindless acquisition just for that sake of it. Think of it this way: everything you buy (and don’t eat or drink) will eventually end up in a landfill.
Every time you buy a new bottle of water and throw the bottle away, you are contributing to this issue. We have perfectly clean and healthy tap water. Why not buy a proper glass or reusable plastic bottle and fill up at the tap?
Every time you buy a product with loads of unnecessary plastic, you contribute to this problem. Choose products with less packaging. Contact the companies you buy from and demand less packaging.
I repeat, everything you buy and don’t actually eat or drink will end up in a landfill. Your old couch. Your TV. Your cellphone. These things don’t just magically disappear when you throw them away. So buy sensibly.
Reuse and recycle
If you can reuse something for another purpose, do so! Upcycling is a wonderful new trend that turns “waste” into useful, and often quite beautiful objects. You’d be surprised what you could do with bottle caps, empty milk bottles and even plastic bags .
But if you’re not the crafty type, just recycle! According to The Glass Recycling Company there are a host of great reasons to recycle:
- Recycling glass saves very precious landfill space
- Reduces littering
- Saves energy – recycling just one bottle saves enough energy to power an electric light bulb for 7 hours
- Reduces the need for raw materials and the processing of them, so it reduces your carbon footprint dramatically
- Conserves natural resources
- Can serve as a source of income
Visit The Glass Recycling Company’s website now to see how you can start a profiting business by recycling, while making our country cleaner and safer.
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