By Anna Grace Lee
The New York Times
In a San Antonio garage, two millennial mothers blast Avril Lavigne over speakers. They spend hours with the garage door open, soaking up the Texas air and sorting through small mountains of children’s clothes.
This is how Kara Livingston, 36, and Nico...
Author: Shannon Bergstrom is a LEED Green Associate, TRUE waste advisor, September 23, 2021
At this point, it’s safe to say that most people know enough about recycling to hold a conversation about the subject. Still, the quality of that conversation may come into question once the pa...
According to recent data from the WHO, “9 out of 10 people breathe air containing high levels of pollutants.”
The data also blames the alarming death toll of 7 million people every year on outdoor and household air pollution.
It further states that “around 3 billion people – more than 40% of the w...
By Jessica Oaks
Technology has provided society with countless ways to gain information and take action toward a sustainable lifestyle. With global warming being a hot topic and constantly inconsistent extreme weather patterns taking place all across the globe, it is now more apparent than ever tha...
Plastic is a nuisance after use, especially if there are no guidelines of how to dispose it off. In developed countries there are special containers and in some places you are paid to dispose of your glass and plastic. In Kampala the capital city of Uganda receives about 600 tons of disposed of plastic every day, which ends up in sewage systems and littering the city (National Environment Management Authority) adding to the uncollected garbage which ends in manholes, drainage channels, on the road side and natural water courses. Which is normally dumped during night fall in slum areas, leading to flooding in those areas and the city as most of the water channels running through the city originate from slum areas.
Source: Waqt News
The government once threatened banning packed water if the producers didn’t ensure proper disposal of used bottles by the Minister of Water and Environment in 2009. Coca Cola is the only company that has complied by setting seven plastic waste collection centres in the whole of Uganda. Plastic does not degrade like organic garbage and hence not supporting life in the soil where dumped. Places with plastic are not fit for agricultural production. Polyvinylchloride (PVC) plastic emits gases like carbon monoxide they are found in bottles, drain pipes, sewage pipes e.t.c. furans and dioxin are leading to cancer and respiratory diseases when burnt.
Source: New vision
The problem has been tackled head on by collecting the used and improperly disposed of plastic for recycling through plastic waste management for cash. In 2010 one plant was operational, now we have more than 15 plastic recycling plants in Uganda, most of them in Kampala the centre of the problem. A need for partnership is that most of the plants operate below capacity due to the limited technology like the specialized film washing line missing in most of the plants. Recycling has given employment to youths who collect the used plastic for money i.e. 250 to 1,000 UGX SHS per kg which depends on the type of plastic. Some are organized and supported into community based collectors by Living Earth Uganda a local branch of an international natural resources management nonprofit organization.
Source: Waqt news
Bottles are used as bricks for building, a practice that is being taken up in South America, Africa and Asia. There are many other uses for plastic bottles only limited to someone imagination and inventing capability.
By Liu Zheng (chinadaily.com.cn)
Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Foxconn Technology Group has joined hands with Apple China on its "reuse and recycling program", Tencent's technology channel reported on Thursday, quoting people familiar with the program.
According to the report, a subsidiary...
1. The average person generates over 4 pounds of trash every day and about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year.
2. Americans make more than 200 million tons of garbage each year, enough to fill Busch Stadium from top to bottom twice a day. Next time you’re at a sporting event or tailgate, host a trash...
In case you haven’t noticed by the thousands of pumpkin flavored foods now available (some being rather questionable), we’ve officially entered Fall. If you’re like me, this colorful season of apple crisp and crunchy leaves is home to your favorite holiday: Halloween! However excited we are to ...
There will never be a shortage of garbage (unless you live in Norway), though British Airways could start putting that trash to good use. The air carrier has put in an order for $500 million of Solena Fuel’s recycled garbage jet fuel…and this is more about dollars and cents than greenwashing.
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The U.S. federal government is the nation's largest consumer and disposer of electronics. Considering the number of federal employees—about 2.7 million at last count, not including the military or courts—U.S. government employees contribute a massive portion to the approximate 2.4 million tons of el...
A new plant in Glendale, Arizona promises to triple the amount of trash the city recycles each year when it begins operations in April. The facility, which is being built by Chicago-based company, Vieste, will be located on 6 acres of Glendale's landfill, just a few miles west of the University...
