The time is long gone when all you had to do to "eliminate" your waste was to throw it out on the street (from the Latin, e-limen = out of the threshold of the house). Today, waste treatment is difficult and expensive and has harmful consequences on the environment.

In addition, natural resources are becoming scarcer. Indeed, each waste contains raw materials and has consumed resources (energy and water) during its life cycle. Incinerating waste or landfilling it to decompose means wasting these raw materials and resources.

We must, therefore, go beyond the simple treatment of waste by incineration or landfill, which only aims to reduce its volume. We need to deal with the problem of waste at the grassroots level and prevent it from arising in the first place. In order to do this, we must adopt sustainable waste management.

This means preventing an object from becoming waste and thus allowing the raw materials of which that object is composed to continue to serve humanity. At the same time, we save the resources needed to treat waste (energy, water) and reduce the pollution that results from this treatment.

Prevention aims to prevent a product from becoming waste. We can buy better quality products that we will use for longer, avoid buying disposable products, avoid replacing products that still work very well just because they are no longer fashionable.

Waste prevention therefore involves changing our habits and consumer choices. Here are a few examples:

- Reducing packaging. In Belgium, more than 30% of the weight (and 50% of the volume) of our trash can consists of packaging. To reduce this quantity, we can buy food in bulk, choose large packaging, avoid individual doses, choose refills, cook fresh products instead of buying ready-made meals, etc.

- Ban disposable items. In recent years, disposable plastic objects have been spreading everywhere under the pretext that they are more practical. But sustainable alternatives do exist. We can use a reusable basket or bag to do our shopping, use a water bottle filled with tap water for drinking, or use a lunch box to pack our snacks. Why not organize a "sustainable" party or picnic with reusable dishes, cutlery and cups, cloth tablecloths...?

- Avoid food waste. Each household throws away between 15 and 20 kg of food per year that has not been consumed (often still in its original packaging!). Having a shopping list, managing your fridge well and accommodating food leftovers helps reduce this amount of food wastage.

- Rent rather than buy. We often buy items that we rarely use, when it is possible to rent them. The latter is cheaper and better for the planet! Media libraries, libraries and toy libraries offer a wide choice of media (DVDs, CDs, PC games, language methods...), books and games to borrow. Some do-it-yourself or gardening shops rent tools. Leasing of office equipment (photocopiers, etc.) is an increasingly common practice.

- Dematerialize. This means using services rather than objects. We can offer a cinema or theatre ticket rather than a DVD, a subscription to the toy library rather than a game...

- Compost organic waste. Green waste and kitchen waste (grass clippings, peelings, coffee grounds, food scraps, etc.) are biodegradable, i.e. they can be decomposed by living organisms. By composting them in the garden, we turn them into compost instead of waste.

To conclude, it is the responsability of each one of us!!!