Garbage pollution, we all know, is a big deal to our environment. My city Iquitos, a small city, for example, generates 382 tons of household wastes every day, however, 60% of them is recollected and managed. As a result, 40% of pollutants are out there thrown down the streets, parks, clandestine dumps, or floating on the river. I can¡¯t imagen how big the data is in big cities in all around the globe. However, what can we do to reduce the impact? In this article, I am going to attempt to respond this question. I am going to explain two pollution-management strategies, taking into account the reality of two type of society: Non-developed and developed.
First of all, waste to feeding. My own idea. This is a strategy, which consist to get the maximum organic waste from landfills for composting, in order to manage a project of growing vegetable and fruits for benefiting children with anaemia and malnutrition. I thought about this idea for three reasons. First, because it is approachable for non-developed countries, second it benefits health and environment without using advanced technological sources. Several countries in the world don¡¯t get the chance to work with advanced technology to cut down the impact of garbage pollution. However, they still can contribute to the change with other way. Waste to feeding, is approachable because it just needs the political acceptance and not economic interests behind. The idea is to build up two landfills, one for solid waste and the other for organic. In the second one, a process of composting will be executed and it can be treated to grow plants and greens after. That way, reduce some health problems also. For example, in Peru chronic child malnutrition is a big deal. According to international statistic, nearly 30% of children aged under five years old suffer from this issue. Therefore, it affects their health and their growth years later.[2] Thereby, all the vegetables, and other green productions can be donated to feed those vulnerable children, this seems to be an ambitious project but the government has to be involved too to be successful. On the other hand, from the 382 tons of household waste generated in Peru, 154 end to streets, corners, rivers and lakes[3]. Executing this plan 40% of organic waste can be reduce to 0%. Therefore, waste to feeding, can be managed easily to reduce the impact of garbage pollution at the time of benefiting children with malnutrition too. What do you think? Could it work in your country?
On the other hand, we have ¡°Waste to energy¡±, it is the name of an ongoing project that ¡°describe various technologies that convert non-recyclable waste into usable forms of energy¡±. This is not my idea but I found it really interesting to share with you. Everyday tons of garbage is placed down the landfills. Just a few percentage of it, is recyclable but the other not. Then, those pollutants stay at the landfills for a extend period of time, while, polluting the land and emitting a huge amount of CO2 into the atmosphere . Waste to energy, seems to be an alternative of solution, specially for those countries with advanced technologies because non- recyclable wastes will be transformed into energy. Besides, those developed countries can invest in Green Blaze and Energy Brick technologies. Green Blaze technology is the process to convert all type of garbage into electrical energy, using advanced technological incineration, where CO2, Mercury Sulfur oxide, Nitrogen, and so on will be cut down. On the other hand, Energy Brick is an effective storage of electrical power, generated by any type of conventional or alternative power sources. That way, energy can be produced from garbage and shared with the population. Therefore, it will benefit the environment because the amount of pollutants in landfills will be less. However, this is still a project being analysed. I hope it can be carried out as soon as possible in all developed countries. What do you think?
To end, I shared with you two ideas to reduce the impact of garbage pollution. The first one was, developed by myself, called Waste to feeding and the second one was Waste to energy. Nowadays we are in need of solutions for the environmental crisis, no matter if your suggestion could sounds weird, crazy or impossible, but the idea is that everybody takes part in this situation. We need hear people, so that we can work together for a better world.
References:
UNAPIquitos.(2015).Diagnostico de la problemática de los residuos solidos urbanos en el ámbito del Municipio Provincial de Maynas, Iquitos-Peru,2014. Retrieved from http://repositorio.unapiquitos.edu.pe/handle/UNAP/4993#:~:text=El%20r%C3%A1pido%20crecimiento%20demogr%C3%A1fico%20de,son%20el%201%2C8%25.
ADGEX.(2019). Sustainable Waste to Energy Project. Retrieved from https://www.studentenergy.org/topics/waste-to-energy
UniversidadDelPacifico.(2012).Desnutrición
crónica infantil en el Perú: un problema persistente. Retrieved from http://repositorio.up.edu.pe/handle/11354/349#:~:text=La%20desnutrici%C3%B3n%20cr%C3%B3nica%20infantil%20en,a%C3%B1os%20sufre%20de%20este%20mal
[1] UNAPIquitos.(2015).Diagnostico de la problemática de los residuos solidos urbanos en el ámbito del Municipio Provincial de Maynas, Iquitos-Peru,2014. Retrieved from http://repositorio.unapiquitos.edu.pe/handle/UNAP/4993#:~:text=El%20r%C3%A1pido%20crecimiento%20demogr%C3%A1fico%20de,son%20el%201%2C8%25.
[2] UniversidadDelPacifico.(2012).Desnutrición
crónica infantil en el Perú: un problema persistente. Retrieved from http://repositorio.up.edu.pe/handle/11354/349#:~:text=La%20desnutrici%C3%B3n%20cr%C3%B3nica%20infantil%20en,a%C3%B1os%20sufre%20de%20este%20mal
[3] UNAPIquitos.(2015).Diagnostico de la problemática de los residuos solidos urbanos en el ámbito del Municipio Provincial de Maynas, Iquitos-Peru,2014. Retrieved from http://repositorio.unapiquitos.edu.pe/handle/UNAP/4993#:~:text=El%20r%C3%A1pido%20crecimiento%20demogr%C3%A1fico%20de,son%20el%201%2C8%25.
[4] ADGEX.(2019). Sustainable Waste to Energy Project. Retrieved from https://www.studentenergy.org/topics/waste-to-energy
[5] Idem
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