Nothing is taken anywhere and does not disappear anywhere.
Increasing rates of consumption and significantly higher rates of supply of producers; the lack of a competent legal regulation program in many countries, as well as the lack of a culture of consumption and waste management, has led to the fact that the volumes of waste generated by human are becoming alarmingly large.
Recently I read one term that accurately reflects the consumer trend of today - "Affluenza - The All-Consuming Epidemic"
The bottom line is that consumption becomes a kind of messy and irrepressible. People are ready to give their money to any product, not being guided by its real need, value, durability and, what is important today - environmental friendliness!
Disorderly consumerism, here is an approximate characteristic of affluenza.
I want to note that only a small part of the people, reading this post, found out in themselves a disorderly consumer. Many are confident that they consciously and deliberately make a decision about the next purchase.
However, this decision is "weighed" on the scales, which have not been passed through validation a long time already, and we have lost the sense of the true value of things long time ago.
The major influence on increasing the amount of waste produced by human, in made by development of the so-called coproeconomics or, roughly speaking, the economy, which is based on the turnover of shit.
It is about increasing the production of goods from cheap materials, cheap equipment, using cheap technology and cheap (low-skilled) labor. This process leads to a rapid wear of the products, which, in turn, leads to the purchase of all the same "short-lived" product.
And if in your house things don't multiplying, then in your garbage tank they always do so.
High-quality materials and technologies do not stop the "High-quality" products leaders, which lay in advance the reduced period of the so-called planned wear of the that part, because of which you'll have to buy a whole new high-quality product or its expensive components.
The personalization of the component parts, is another engine of coproeconomics and waste growth. When, because of the rejection of universality, each purchase of the product is accompanied by the purchase of the corresponding accessories and, accordingly, we throw into the waste what is already inapplicable.
Advertising, marketing are the servicing structures of coproeconomics, which are those extra weights on the scales of our decisions that put us to sleep and sell us not the goods, not the function, but the image and self-perception.
I worked in sales and I know how to train sellers. They are told by direct text that they are selling not goods, but emotions. And emotions are an irrational mechanism of choice.
All this rapid growth: population, production, consumption, led to the fact that, according to calculations taken from the report "Vital Waste Graphics 3.0" by the middle of this century, the vital activity of 9 million earth people will lead to the formation of 6 300 thousandth tons of waste annually!
Does the growing of our ability to consume make us happier?
And what price are we willing to pay for this illusion of happiness?
You may think that waste problems are mainly related to those who live in the countries of the so-called third world, but the reality is that waste in any country, whether it is a rich man's trash can or a poor man's cesspool, is the same waste, both of them exist and are on our planet and have their pernicious influence.
If in your country the government "manages" waste, then from the produced manipulations there is only one positive effect - a decrease in the area occupied by these wastes.
What does the Earth pay?
In one form or another, we give the recycled garbage to the final disintegration into the hands of our planet.
The Earth is silent. The Earth does not ask for the anything, but will take it's owns, because pays dearly for our bluing.
While we think that we are helping ecology, burying and burning garbage, in fact the following happens.
Emissions to soil and water:
contaminated rivers, oceans, water layer;
contaminated soil and arable land;
air pollution.
Emissions to the atmosphere from waste incineration:
loss of biodiversity and ecosystem regulation;
threat to drinking water and food resources - yield reduction.
Emissions of landfill gases into the atmosphere - the cause of climate change:
natural disasters
salinization of drinking water
spread of parasites
As a negative impact, one should remember about the smell, the visual ugliness of waste, even if it "carefully dumped" in a pile and, of course, the unsightliness of places for processing waste for agriculture, for life and recreation.
What will we pay?
Most often the human body is exposed to such products of waste decomposition:
greenhouse gases (methane)
Inorganic substances (nitrogen, phosphorus, chlorides)
other organic substances (organic carbon)
heavy metals (in order of decreasing mass of emissions): zinc, copper, nickel, lead, chromium, arsenic, cadmium, mercury).
Load on the body in order of vulnerability of systems (from high to low):
1. Central Nervous System - the brain
2. Digestive and urinary systems - liver, kidneys
3. Reproductive and Endocrine system - mammary glands
4. Respiratory system - lungs
It is harmful for health, to think that these are the concerns of those who are for a long time in the immediate vicinity of the waste - cleaning workers and people living near landfills or incineration plants.
Climate change and loss of biological diversity are not noticeable for an individual, but, from the point of view of society, they are very significant.
Pollution of resources has serious consequences for a person:
dysfunction of the liver, kidneys
problems with breastfeeding
disruption of the blood and nervous system
cancer
Everything looks rather gloomy and, in fact, I have nothing to relieve the burden of these conclusions.
There are many excellent initiatives in which a lot of people are involved, from individuals and groups to associations of states, to minimize waste and transition to processed raw materials.
But the physical and chemical reality of our planet is such that we have only one way out, not to mess our home- this is a reduction in consumption. Because, no matter how much we recycle our waste, this minimum will not go anywhere and sooner or later it will turn into a maximum.
While each of us does not realize the importance of leaving as few traces of our existence as possible, so that there is always a place for something new, we will confidently wrap ourselves in a cocoon from our own waste.
And now I can give you my answer to the question posed in the title of this article.
Waste management is the culture of every individual, allowing him to manage waste through reducing their formation to a minimum.
It is already to much words for one post.
Thanks to those who've got to the end together with me)
In future posts I will continue the theme of ecological existence.
I hope you will find useful my personal experience and observations.
And yours will be useful for me) Share your environmental discoveries in comments and posts.
Take care of yourself! Take care of the Earth!
For the benefit of all living beings!