The best waste is no waste! Our lifestyle has subtly changed: we have started buying and then discarding more and more things and packaging.
Over the past 15 years, the volume of household waste collected annually from settlements in Belarus has doubled.
The main reason is the short service life of many products: disposable tableware, plastic bags, containers and packaging for consumer goods. According to scientists, approximately 40% of plastic products and packaging have a service life of less than one month. That is, they end up in the waste stream almost immediately after use. It turns out we are buying trash.
Up to 4 billion packaging bags per year are consumed in Belarus due to their free and unlimited distribution in stores.
200 million disposable plastic tableware items are used by Belarusians annually.
The problem of excessive consumption of resources is a characteristic of the modern world. In the 20th century alone, more mineral resources were extracted than in the entire preceding history of mankind.
However, almost all natural resources that we spend on producing packaging and disposable items are not infinite. Furthermore, these resources are absolutely non-renewable or regenerate millions of times slower than we use them.
Nature took millions of years to form mineral resources. Yet, humans use packaging for no more than a month, and a bag for just an hour.
Can we rectify the situation while maintaining our modern standard of living?
Yes! How to do it is explained in a series of new videos from the "Goal 99" movement -
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTiv3qYLSutDpsIuWV04t1ngSNNLtWBTw
The videos can be easily found on Youtube under the tag #bestwaste99
We can change the way resources are used. We can return waste to production. But for waste to become valuable secondary raw material, it must be collected separately. Dispose of it in special containers for paper, glass, plastic, or hand in waste paper, glass containers, plastic, tires, old household appliances to collection points for secondary raw materials.
We can reducethe amount of waste generated. Avoid excessive, meaningless waste – disposable plastic items and disposable packaging.
No waste – no problem. The best waste is the waste that doesn't exist.
Watch the video #bestwaste99:
about our lifestyle and waste: who is in charge,
how what we throw away is produced, and how not to run out of resources for life,
what happens to the waste you have sorted,
how, when discarding unnecessary items, not to miss hazardous waste,
rules for waste sorting in Belarus.
