There is nothing permanent except change (Heraclitus)

Everything happens with change: new tasks, new opportunities, new challenges, new adventures, new responsibilities, and in the most significant part of cases, growth. Discover why you shouldn't resist change.

If, as Heraclitus said, change is permanent and therefore inevitable, why do you persist in wanting to manage waste the way you managed it 30 years ago?

It does not matter whether you are a citizen or have a waste management company; what matters is that the world of waste changes if you change.

I keep seeing hundreds of posts, articles, and research focused on how to cope with waste management as if solutions do not exist.

Let me debunk a myth: solutions to waste problems exist.

A great French scientist, my favorite one, A. De Lavoisier, collected them all in one sentence: nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.

Yes, you read it right.

Everything is transformed.

This phrase means only one thing: all the waste can be transformed into something else with existing and new processes.

I know you are asking: “Why will we continue to have waste problems around the planet if the solutions already exist?”

We’ll continue to have waste problems for one simple reason: there are problems in education about the value that a single pound of waste has. And the lack of education and people's responsibility is the cause of waste mismanagement worldwide.

That’s the problem.

Not the technology; if you think about how plastic bottles are produced, you can easily imagine a process that goes in the opposite direction.?

It’s chemistry.

And that part is not your responsibility.?

Your responsibility is to create the change that drives waste in the right direction, in the right conditions to be recycled or reused (when possible).

That means being ready to change your mindset around waste and start acting immediately.

As Mary Lou Cook said: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

For that reason, start your recycling journey now by following these steps:

– Segregate organic waste from the not organics;

– Segregate all the recyclable materials in separate bins: one for plastics, one for paper, one for cardboard, one for glass, one for metals, and one for electrical and electronic waste;

– Clean the recyclables trying to remove the residues inside. I’m referring to oils, foods, and dirt;

– Find a waste management company that collects your waste, takes care of the segregation you did at home, and puts this waste in a recycling process, avoiding landfilling these materials.

Spread the voice about what you are doing with your friends and family. For example, create a group in your neighborhood to educate people about the importance of proper waste management to solve the waste problem.

This change will drive your community to transform the local environment first and create new business opportunities for people that start processing waste and new jobs.

Do you want to solve the waste problem?

Act Now!

Be The Change

Sam

#wastemanagement #sustainability #recycling