Environmental Issues

Waste or trash disposal is done in order to prevent infection from spreading. Health care facilities consider waste disposal as important as ensuring their patients health. Most healthcare wastes are considered more dangerous than any ordinary household trash because of the types that expose humans to graver health risks (Pabico, A. 2007). Trash disposal includes several processes starting from collection, transportation, processing, and recycling.  Monitoring of waste materials is also covered to guarantee that it does no harm to human or the environment. There are different procedures in terms of disposing trash. It depends particularly in the type of area  urban or rural, developed or developing area, and even industrial or residential. As population increase in a certain area, the amount of waste or trash produced also increases. Now, several reports about waste disposal notify us that it is becoming a concern especially for environmentalists.

Waste has been categorized into two types. There are biodegradable wastes that can decompose or be broken down by other living organisms such as food waste, manure, and plants. Then there is the non-biodegradable waste that can not be decomposed and remains on the earth for many years such as plastics and tin cans. These wastes come from different sources such as domestic (from household), commercial (from offices like papers, spoiled products, etc.), ashes (burned fossil fuels), biomedical (from health establishments), industrial solid waste, hazardous waste (toxic waste), and sewer.

Over the years, studies have shown the effects of improper waste on the environment and humans as well. However, the causes of improper trash disposal are really that simple and there is no scientific term that can be used. First, people are not knowledgeable on what types of trash, how to dispose them, and if it affects the world they live in. second reason is that the people are not motivated to push the proper waste disposal or management. This may also due to the fact that communities do not provide seminars or awareness programs for the people to be informed. Communities may not also adapt proper disposal programs which makes the people unmotivated.

Now, with the growing technology, it is a wonder why trash disposal is still a nuisance to each and every person in a community. The Philippines, as an example, has a population of almost 75 million having the urban area of 57 and a poverty line of 38. Due to this, environmental issues have been a major concern. An environmentalist grouped Philippines environmental issues into 3 parts Brown (pollution from industries and transportation), Green (environmental impacts form deforestation and agriculture, and Blue (all forms of water pollution). Being a tropical country, Philippines is visited by storms all throughout the year. News showed that recent storms (year 2009) have led to massive destruction both in provincial and urban areas. Locals took more than one week just to clean whatever the storm have left and most of these are trash flowed out from rivers and canals.

In any scale, improper waste disposal can both affect environment and humans. Even pets or animals can be affected. One important factor is the loss of resources. We can not reused these trash to transform it or recycle it, which will led us to make use of virgin or raw materials to produce new products (Leslie, K. 2009). In addition to this, the more virgin the materials are, the more energy is used in creating new products (123HelpMe.com 2010). Another is the release of toxins that can be hazardous to our health (CDC Online, 2005). Along with these, greenhouse gases that affect the atmosphere will also be released. Therefore, global climate change becomes worse.

Contamination and spread of infection will become frequent and massive if irresponsible disposal will continue. The fight against waste management is not just the governments problem. The participation of every single person in the community they live in will play a big role in making the trash disposal successful. Everyone must become aware on the danger it brings for us to become motivated in contributing to the activity.