Europe is a nice place with some really great people. But man do we love to throw things away. In fact, the average European junks about 525 kilograms of waste each year. I mean that’s a whole lot of stuff, and much of it really is stuff as opposed to waste. Useful stuff worth money. All in all, it’s just a waste of waste, isn’t it?
It’s pretty hard on your back too. So what can you do about it?
Okay so you’ve got your half a ton of waste which might not make you half a ton of money but it could make you some, and off we go.
A lot of the stuff in the bag is pretty useful as it is. Some bottles just need a wash-up and a new cap and old clothes and furniture come back into fashion before you know it.
Some of it might need a bit of repair, but hey that’s job creation right there, can’t be a bad thing?
That’s it we’re talking reuse. You might need to spend some money to make this happen.
But since useful stuff is valuable, you’ll get it back and then some.
Now some of your waste might be useless in itself but made out of good stuff like metal, glass, paper, and cardboard. All of which can be utilized again if you treat it right, and in fact, some of the really weird stuff used in electronic gadgets is so scarce that we actually
need to use it again if we don’t want to run out and yes it’s called recycling. Of course, collecting and processing aren’t free but here’s the clever bit, recycling turns your waste into useful stuff that can be sold.
Shazaam money in the bank mate, and as if by magic, new jobs will appear as well. So
how’s your back then? better eh? looking good
Let’s have a look at what’s left in the back: food leftovers, used cooking oil some wooden paper, lots of plastic and you smelly stuff like cat litter and use diapers that sadly can’t be reused or recycled, or can it? Actually, it can. If you burn it to generate power and heat buildings and collect the biogas to use as fuel, it might not smell of roses but hey this is useful stuff.
Of course you need to make some initial investments, but in the long run, burning waste is
definitely a whole lot cheaper than burning oil or coal. Same with greenhouse gas emissions, no contest really. And then there’s job creation again.
This neat little trick is known as energy recovery.
Not much left in the bag is there? a whole lot less than half a ton that’s for sure.
Time to get rid of what’s left at that place we all know and hate as the dump. Sadly, it can’t be avoided completely. Some waste is simply useless and won’t even burn.
Of course, you don’t want poisons lying about so harmful stuff needs to be securely destroyed or stored out of harm’s way. Safety first of course and there are job opportunities there as well but hang on a second, do you really need to create that much waste, to begin with? come on it’s half a ton for crying out loud. Of course, you don’t.
We could all begin by actually eating the food we produce. Today half of it goes into the bin somewhere along the line. I mean that’s just wrong.
Another good idea is to steer clear of disposable containers and packaging and why not try reading the paper online instead of on paper, and so on. The trick is to reduce the amount of stuff you throw away in the first place. So there you have it. And you know the cool thing is that all this is being done all over Europe as we or rather I speak. For instance in Norrköping Sweden, for local fuel and power companies literally, live off each other’s waste. The stuff that one company discards becomes the next ones raw material, and round and round it goes. Brilliant!!!
Meanwhile, in Hungary a mushroom growing company have this really sweet sideline going. An electric power plant fueled by biogas made from mushroom scraps unused growing substrate. That produces marketable green power. I mean how clever is that!!
And in Cumbria in the UK, the county waste management people have worked with teachers and pupils to turn the Cockermouth school into a sustainable school. This is good news in more ways than one, not only does the school chuck away a whole lot less
than before, but the pupils have become expert reuses recyclers and reduce in the process, and that’s vital.
After all, we’re not born with sustainability skills. We all need to learn them. it’s not like it’s rocket science or anything or it would be Stephen Hawking telling you this and not me, but still, knowledge is power, green power. So education and information is a big piece of the puzzle, no doubt, costly sure. But then again you need to create jobs. Don’t you?
I mean let’s face it, wasting your waste is such a waste!!
