Image Courtesy : Photo by Lisa Fotios from Pexels
For the past few months, I have developed this habit of segregating trash at home. It has not yet become a common habit in India yet but do you know how much you can help the waste pickers and the environment by doing this simple task at home itself? So, let me talk about why and how to segregate waste at home?
Eco-conscious is the new buzz word. Sadly, we are living in India where we need to run campaigns like ‘Swacch Bharat’ which is touted to be wildly successful. And, yet we are not used to segregating our trash even after so much awareness and education earning high salaries and living in cosmopolitans and metropolitan cities.
Why should we segregate waste at home?
Our trash has lot of things from the wet green waste to the unhygienic sanitary and medical waste. Sometimes, we irresponsibly throw in the e-waste and batteries as well. When we do not segregate our waste, the task falls upon the waste pickers.
Did you know that the waste pickers are exposed to an abundance of health hazards because we are not used to segregate waste at home?
Exposure to the sanitary waste exposes them to loads of bacteria and other insects which get attracted to them. When we dispose of even small batteries, the chemicals leak out of them. When waste pickers segregate the waste, they get exposed to these chemicals like cadmium, chromium, mercury, et cetera. These toxic chemicals are also released into the environment causing environmental hazard.
Separating plastic, on the other hand, is a tedious task. Going through the land mines of waste and picking up every small piece of plastic is nearly inhumane. And, finally, at least a little percentage of the plastic ends up getting burned and releasing toxic fumes into the environment.
Helping the waste pickers and environment on the other hand will reduce our personal carbon footprint and help pass down the habit to the future generations. You can also earn money by selling off all the recyclable waste segregated at home.
How to segregate waste at home?
It is common knowledge that we have three categories of waste – biodegradable or greens, recyclable which includes cartons, plastic and glass and rejected waste which includes sanitary and medical waste. Electronic waste (e-waste) comes under recyclable waste.
