ATP: Lesson - Waste Reduction Methods (Topic 8.10) 📖

Refuse

By refusing items, we actively prevent waste from entering our lives. This can take two forms:

• Declining to participate in waste-generating activities: 
  • say no to single use plastic bags and disposable cutlery and straws
  • do not participate in balloon releases
• Refusing to accumulate what we don’t need: 
  • politely decline freebies you don't need
  • decline unnecessary promotional items
  • do not buy products that harm the environment

Reduce

Reduction is the process of intentionally consuming less. Here are some ways you can reduce the amount of waste you generate:

• Buy only what you need: 
  • do you NEED a new phone?
• Quality over Quantity: 
  • choose high-quality products that last longer. My dad used to say "the most expensive thing you buy is sometimes the cheapest" because you have to replace it more frequently
• Avoid overpackaged goods: 
  • choose products with minimal packaging

Reuse

Reusing is the process of doing just that: reusing things that you already have. Reusing provides a trifold approach to waste reduction:

• Preserves Resources: 
  • extending the lifespan of items that have already been made
  • reducing the demand for raw materials and manufacturing
• Minimizes Landfill Waste: 
  • Reusing items prevents them from ending up in landfills
• Reduces Pollution: 
  • Resource extraction, processing, and manufacturing generates pollution and is energy-intensive, reusing minimizes this

 In our family, we reuse in several ways:

• we all use reusable water bottles, containers, and cups (top left: my son is eating and drinking out of reusable containers)
• our kids wear each other's clothes, and we hand them down to my nephew (top right: both kids wore this shirt)
• we purchase furniture and other items on secondhand sites (middle left: all furniture and trains are secondhand)
• when our kids were younger, we used cloth diapers (middle right: my oldest in a newborn cloth diaper)
• we repurpose things that are no longer useful for their original purpose (bottom left: we turned their water table into a planter)
• our kids use their backpacks for multiple years until they break (bottom right: my son got this backpack when he turned 3 and used it until he was 6)

How do you reuse in your home? 

Recycle

If something can’t be reused and you couldn’t do without buying it, you can try to recycle it. Approximately 75% of our municipal solid waste (MSW) is recyclable.  

Materials recovery facilities (MRFs) are facilities that sort and process recyclables. They do require an energy input to separate, clean, and refashion items into new items, but they are keeping items out of the landfill and provide relatively high paying jobs that do not require high levels of education.

Primary recycling is when we take the waste and make it into the same thing. For example, recycling newspapers to make more newspapers is primary recycling. 

Secondary recycling is when waste materials are made into different, recyclable or non-recyclable, products. For example, I used to have a bearded dragon in my classroom. His tank had a reptile carpet on the floor of his tank. The carpet was made from recycled plastic bottles. This was secondary recycling because the plastic bottles were made into a reptile carpet instead of more plastic bottles.

Plastic is generally considered to be a very valuable recyclable but there are many different types of plastic in use in society. In order to recycle plastic efficiently, it must be sorted into one of the seven major categories and not every plastic is recyclable. Just because an item has the “recycling triangle” does not mean that it is always recyclable, especially in smaller cities and towns. 

The system of putting chasing arrow triangles on plastic and numbering the type of plastic was created by the plastic industry.  Numbers 3, 4, 5, and 7 are difficult to recycle and often not recycled at all. Nothing over 5 can be recycled, even if you do put it in your recycling bin.  Usually, only numbers 1 and 2 are easily recycled. 

Number 1 plastics can be turned into carpets, jackets, film, strapping, and new bottles. Number 2 plastics can be turned into drainage tiles, sheet plastic, and recycling bins.

Aluminum is our best recycling success story so far.  

Buying recycled items or items that have been made through the recycling process helps close the entire recycling “loop.”

Even with all the benefits, many do not recycle because it requires more effort.  The best way to increase the amount of people that are recycling is to...

• make recycling mandatory (or cheaper than trash collection)
• easy
• offer incentives for recycling
• provide political and industrial support

For example, in our town, the county provides us with recycling bins, but we have to purchase our own trash bins, incentivizing recycling. 

Rot

The last R, Rot, stands for composting. When done correctly, composting can significantly reduce waste production and benefit the environment:

• Diverts organic waste: 
  • allows us to keep kitchen scraps and garden residue out of landfills
• Reduces methane emissions: 
  • composting organic material prevents it from producing methane, as happens when it decomposes in a landfill
• Nutrient-rich soil amendment: 
  • compost can be added back to gardens, improving water retention and soil fertility
• Greenhouse gas reduction: 
  • composting reduces food waste and loss, which generates an estimated 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions
  • composting also reduces the need for fertilizers
• Circular economy: 
  • allows us to repurpose organic materials sustainably