Humankind has many battles to fight, numerous issues to set right and a multitude of solutions to come up with in order to deal with the major crises which we are currently encountering. The population of the world is increasing exponentially owing to advancements in the field of medical sciences and technology. Though these scientific achievements can be lauded, this also means that a growing population will produce more waste. So the need of the hour is to tackle the problem of waste management and waste disposal. And this time we need to do it effectively and efficiently. Whether it is representative Alexandria Ocazio-Cortez’s winning campaign in New York that focused on the specific needs of individual households, Dr. Abhijit Bannerjee’s method of dealing with poverty which got him the Nobel Prize, or even solving the crucial malaise of waste management; thinking and starting to execute at the grassroots level will always prove to be fruitful. Therefore, we need to start segregating our waste at source and nip the habit of mindless dumping at the bud. Before thinking of suitable waste disposal methods, we must first learn about the nature of the different kinds of waste we produce, because the better we understand the physical and chemical properties of the waste produced, the more informed our choices will be. For that, segregation is a key. Separating our trash at the source really goes a long way in aiding the optimization of waste management. Without a principled source segregation process, all forms of waste get dumped into landfills which have an extreme detrimental effect on the environment and is not fiscally prudent as well. Each type of waste requires different disposal methods. Probably a buckle belt might be a good example for one-size-fits-all, but we should certainly not fit all our trash into one bin. Throwing all our household waste into one bin without segregation is a huge folly on our part. Proper utilization of biodegradable waste such as vegetable peels and other garden waste from our homes will bring down the demand for chemical fertilizers which are not good for the environment. Biogas which is generated as a result of the decomposition of bio-degradable wastes can be used as an alternate source of energy, which will in turn reduce the energy crisis by impressive amounts. But in reality, most of these compostable wastes are incinerated along with plastic waste and emit toxic gases. So basically, mixing every single ingredient together mindlessly, might work for salads, but mixing every type of waste together will definitely not work with our trash. Segregation of waste at source has multifaceted benefits in the aspects of Health, Environment, Economy and Job creation. Segregation of waste and efficient discarding can help us move towards a more circular economy or circularity. This economic system aims to dispose only completely redundant waste and supports the extended use of other forms of waste in order to conserve resources in the long run. The concept of circular economy advocates reducing, reusing, recycling, sharing, refurbishing and remanufacturing things to create a closed-loop system thus reducing production costs of new goods and benefitting the environment due to the decrease in pollution, carbon emission, etc. By “transforming” used products, circularity has a target of increasing their longevity. Many industries in Europe such as the oil and gas industries, the automotive industry, etc., support this idea. For example, Netherlands has a goal to introduce initiatives to increase the income of agriculturalists by 2050 by implementing circular economic policies. So far the country has achieved decent results. Also many Danish furniture industries are planning to embrace circularity. A study by their governments states that 44% of the companies included maintenance costs, 22% had take-back schemes and 56% designed furniture for recycling. They also adopted business models which included the usage of passive durable products and therefore increased their lifetime. This in turn, lessened the number of landfills and unnecessary incineration of trash and this was economic for the company too. In order for us to actually achieve this economic and environmental Shangri-La all over the world, we need to segregate our waste. A success of such magnitude will be possible only if we dedicate a good portion of time into effectively sorting and segregating our waste at the source itself. This will help us to identify the exact type of scrap metal or material that is required for the production of a new good, so that the so-called “waste” can be modified accordingly. As good as it sounds in theory that waste segregation at home will solve the global disposal crisis; pragmatically speaking, it is difficult to implement this in a practicable manner, as each and every citizen should be proactive, thoroughly educated and aware about this issue. Therefore we also need to have a robust centralised system which will help in waste segregation. Other than the heavy machinery that do crude sorting in dump-yards, systematic segregation must take place. This will require more man power for large scale and detailed sorting. So this is expected to create 1.1 million jobs by the year 2030, and the number of people who are below the poverty line will decrease as this job mostly requires unskilled labour. Hence, segregation at source helps us boost the economy and aids in job creation. We, in India, already have an established system of waste segregation when the Swachch Bharat initiative was launched in 2014. The government of the nation, after extensive research and planning decided that the very first step towards a greener and cleaner India was to simply segregate the 1,43,449 metric tonnes per day of municipal solid waste generated by the urban population of 377 million into green and blue bins, that is, for wet waste and dry waste respectively. Bhopal, which is one of the cleanest cities in India, was able to revolutionise its waste disposal methods thanks to proactive segregation. Now, 275 tonnes of waste is being treated by centralised composting centres and 25 tonnes of waste is treated by decentralised methods. This is has resulted in less than 10% of the wet waste generated from reaching landfills. Before all our Terra Firma becomes landfill territory, before all our water bodies become poisoned chalices containing lead and before the air we breathe in order to live becomes a bane to our very existence due to carbon emissions, let’s start segregating – not by religion or by race, but by waste!
