Waste is something which is not useful for us but information about waste management is getting more and more important. Human population always produced waste wherever it thrived but in earlier times the waste produced was small in quantity and mostly biodegradable.With the advent of industrialization, the human population grew rapidly in cities. This rising population combined with various scientific discoveries lead to the rise in waste production. This was obviously pumped by consumerism and lack of farsightedness of governments regarding waste management. Waste processing plants and dumping yards are operating well beyond their capacities. The situation is worse in developing and underdeveloped countries as they lack modern technology for waste treatment. For example, the Ghazipur landfill in East Delhi, spread over 70 acres, already has at least 12 million tonnes of waste. It had a limit of 15 feet of waste which was overshot in 2002 itself. Today it is at least 50 feet tall and still being fed with more waste.
Electrical waste-Around 50 million tonnes of electrical waste is dumped each year. This includes discarded TVs, computers,cellphones,kitchen appliances etc. This is not always waste and can be reused or recycled but only 12.5 % of e-waste is currently recycled. It would have been so nice if we could use that recycle bin icon on our desktops for deleting useless hardware also.
Food wastage- We throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food every year. What is even more shocking is that more than half of that food is edible. According to United Nations, about 21,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger related causes and the main victims are children. This means one person every four seconds is dying of hunger.This is happening when there is plenty of food for everyone in the world.
Supermarkets wastage- Around 20 to 40 percent of fruits and vegetables are rejected by supermarkets before they hit the shelves. The reason being these fruits and vegetables are simply not good looking enough according to their standards. This is because we as buyers also focus a lot on external appearance rather than the actual nutritional value.
Packaging waste- Be it cardboard boxes, polythene bags, bubble wraps or wrapping papers, all of these simply end up in garbage bins after serving a purpose which can be served by less polluting materials. For example, cloth bags are now slowly replacing polythene bags but the pace of this shift is very slow. At Christmas in UK alone, 83 square kilometers of wrapping paper is used. With the rise of e-commerce also, packaging waste is becoming a huge concern.
Water wastage- Water is also something which is wasted on a large scale. A single leaking tap can waste as much as 5,000 litres of water in a year and we have many leaking taps. Water is wasted not only through this but also by leaky pipelines. Bad water usage habits of people is also to be blamed and they forget that one in nine people in the world do not even have access to safe and clean drinking water.
When you throw waste out of your house, please do not think that your house is clean because this world is your actual house. We have only one earth and we are wasting it. So, next time we throw out those garbage bags, we know now that one day that garbage might throw us out of existence.
Links and Sources-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_waste_management
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/wastelands-of-india-heres-how-metros-manage-their-trash/
https://www.ovoenergy.com/blog/green/10-shocking-facts-about-waste.html
http://www.poverty.com/
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