Archive for waste management
10 Disturbing Facts On How Much We Waste
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I’m reminded of just how wasteful we are as I’m at a local mall noticing what’s in the full garbage bin. Lots of plastic bottles, aluminum cans, cardboard – all recyclable, but carelessly tossed and headed to the landfill. People discard things in the garbage without any consideration or respect for the environment. How wasteful are we? Let me count the ways with 10 alarming facts about how we impact waste:
- Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. They take 400 to 1000 years to degrade.
- About 80% of what Americans throw away is recyclable, yet the recycling rate is just 33%.
- $1 out of every $10 spent on food goes into packaging and in the US, over 400 billion plastic bags are tossed into the garbage. Plastic bags can take 1000 years to degrade.
- The average student lunch accounts for 67 pounds of packaging and waste per year (that’s 4.6 trillion pounds in the US alone)
- 5 billion drink boxes are thrown away each year in North America
- 2/3 of our household waste can be composted
- 8 out of 10 water bottles end up in a landfill
- The state of Texas could be shrink-wrapped with the amount of plastic film that Americans throw out
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Eco Friendly Ideas To Rethink Your Waste
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I believe that the key to eco friendly living lies in the details. I don’t think it’s in the big overt gestures but rather it’s in the little things we do when no one is looking. Before you toss or recycle something, ask yourself if it can be reused in some way. If it’s in good condition, join your local Freecycle and offer it up to other members. Or look for eco friendly ideas to find another use for it.
For example, should you have an old shower curtain that needs replacing. There’s no need to chuck the old one out – use one of these eco friendly ideas to reuse it! Not only will you be saving it from being landfilled but you will also save money on the things that you won’t have to buy! Here are a few suggestions for use in the garden and for your kids:
Tags: Eco Friendly, eco friendly kids, eco-friendly ideas, freecycle, recycle, Recycling, reduce waste, reuse, waste, waste management, WasteNothingRobots Bring Recycling And Garbage To Waste Management Site.
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Recently, I read up on the Dustbot project which is “a project aimed at designing, developing, testing and demonstrating a system for improving the management of urban hygiene based on a network of autonomous and cooperating robots.” More simply, the Dustbot is a robot that collects trash, classifies it into organic, recyclable or waste and then whisks it away to a waste management site. Now how cool is that? If only some men could be trained this effectively.
In fact, although still in prototype stages, the robot will bring recycling and garbage to a waste management site by maneuvering itself along the streets and through narrow pathways, utilizing a laser scanner and ultrasound sensors for obstacle avoidance. Reportedly, it also has the ability to measure atmospheric pollutants like sulphur oxide, benzene, ozone, and nitrogen oxide with its on-board sensors. Also, if a registered user wishes to have the robot bring recycling and garbage to a waste management site, the Dustbot can be called by a cell phone. Perhaps it could walk the dog and collect his waste too?
Now as astonishing as all this sounds, I have to say that I am not personally ready to witness Robots roaming the streets without human guidance, even if it does bring recycling and garbage to waste management sites for you. If we can program robots to be green we must be capable of living in a more eco-friendly way ourselves, are you doing your part? Planet Forward aims to take us all a step or a short circuit nearer.
