Environmental Issues

Toni Gladding of Open University in his article Integrated Waste Systems has mentioned, every month homes and businesses in Auckland City put enough rubbish into landfill to fill a rugby field five storeys high and has forced us to imagine our plight in case we ignore this huge quantity of waste being produced day after day. Can we do without reacting to these waste dumps created by us Try to imagine Auckland without the sustainable practices by Zero Waste New Zealand Trust involved in resource recycling. Also the trust continuously encourages and motivates all sectors of New Zealand society to work towards a target of Zero Waste and provides information on products made from recycled materials in New Zealand. The company has developed and maintained a wide range of contacts in the manufacturing field, waste diversion and recycling industries throughout New Zealand. Over the past two years the company has gained extensive experience in both the commercial arena and for the councils. Zero waste is known and trusted in the sectors involving recycling and reuse of organic waste to produce biogas and e-waste recycling. A more recent innovation is the set-up of an industry group, which has been formed to promote the re-use and recycling of old tyres. A respite to the landfills is proposed by Jim and Janene Laughton who are the founding members of this organization and will help with promoting alternative uses of tyres, and prevent the dumping of tyres into the landfill.  
     
New Zealands Litter is a real problem for Auckland This article in the magazine Good New Zealands guide to sustainable living makes every one think about the huge amount of litter produced every year. Do the landfills in the region have an appetite to consume nearly 3.4 million tons of waste which is disposed in the regions landfill every year, and it is common knowledge that this figure grows as fast as the population of the region. Landfills are no longer a cheap or appropriate way to dispose of our waste. It is in everyones interest to reduce waste, reuse goods and recycle materials.

Every one should be a part of the Campaign Be a Tidy Kiwi aimed at encouraging people to reduce the amount of rubbish. What will be the future of the waste if it not processed Yes it will end up on our streets and in our waterways and which will be swept into water drains and emptied into the sea. It is a dismaying thought that one may end up swimming with it if we dont wake up and change the way we think about our rubbish, and this means we have to change the way we think about what we buy and what we do with things when they are no longer useful to us. Paul Brown general manager of Paramount publishing company has appreciated the launch of curbside recycling in Auckland which includes distribution of 120,000 recycling bins and purchase of 17 special truck-and-trailer units for collecting recyclables. The proposal was rejected four years ago as it was not economical to recycle waste in comparison to dumping. However Steve Bickers, manager of Aucklands Waste Minimization Office told New Zealand that the cost was right down on what was expected.

Waste is inescapable, keeping the planet clean should be everyones business hence the new Waste Minimization Act allows for product stewardship schemes which will collect and recycle products instead of sending them to landfill. In addition there are provisions for the Minister of the Environment to declare products to be priority products meaning schemes must be developed for these. Waste minimization activities and programs are being run effectively by Community groups, schools and most of the local councils in NZ and are encouraged and supported adequately by the Minister of the Environment.

Recycling can be made advantageous by ensuring scientific disposal of waste and by generating enough revenues either from the generators or by identifying cost effective activities that generate resources from waste. Garbage revolution starts at home. Auckland City utility and environmental manager Mike McQuillan is very positive that very soon there is going to be change in outlook and attitude of people towards recycling and have a clean-street objective. The New Zealand Waste Strategy sets in place a framework for addressing how we can minimize and manage waste.. Recycling in public place is being encouraged by the Ministry for the Environment by launching a national campaign  Love New Zealand.  The council is currently considering extending the public place recycling trial to other areas around the city. Auckland City Council too has initiated a twelve-month recycling trial in the central business district (CBD) to support the national campaign. The council is also planning to extend this trial of public place recycling to other areas around the city, by placing adequate number of bins for waste collection. The bins will be emptied by the council contractors twice a day and the recyclables collected will be sent to the Materials Recovery Facility for processing. The waste will be separated into various streams like plastics, glass, paper, etc. The plastic is recycled to make soft drink bottles, pillow and sleeping bag filling, recycling bins and speed bumps. Paper is converted to recycled paper used widely in printing and packaging industry.  Glass is recycled to new glass bottles and jars and as a sand substitute in road construction. Steel  Metals can be recycled again and again.

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is an environmental problem that is increasing in lockstep. Computer equipment and other electronics like cell phones, TVs, and microwaves are the most dangerous waste. This is the e-waste which is growing in leaps and bound as the lust for acquiring modern gadgets with latest technology is increasing rapidly. The disposing of e-waste is expensive so many people just put equipment in dumpsters.  There should be some sort of an alarm in the garbage bins to prevent dumping of e-waste in garbage bins. At local levels small scale refurbishment and recycling is happening, where individuals are making huge efforts to extend the usable life of equipment. Organizations such as The Ark Recycling and RCN in Auckland are doing an excellent job by reusing used computers in schools and charitable organizations. A recycling program has been initiated by Dell in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.  This type of refurbishment and recycling should not be limited only to e-waste but should be extended to all types of waste at source. Manufacturers should shoulder the responsibility of disposal and recycling of there products. A policy should be introduced where it is mandatory for all manufactures to provide economical and effective procedure of disposal and recycling of their product.

To face the waste challenges a garbage-recycling combi can be developed. The heart of the recycling combi is a high tech separator. It should be a mobile tank in tank construction and integrate Recycling with Recology.  A high tech Separator should be designed and installed on mobile vans to segregate the waste at source before transporting to recycling plants. Organic waste, paper, plastic and metals that are generally recycled should be separated at source by using adequate sensors to identify and segregate waste. Waste other than these should be recycled and made into construction material or used in landscaping. Just like nature recycles its resources like carbon, nitrogen and water, objective of making a high tech separator is to create paper cycle, plastic cycle, and glass cycle etc of man made material. An industrial ecosystem can be developed between Industry and consumer. Waste of the consumer should generate raw material for industry and it is the moral responsibility of the technocrats to recycle the waste into consumer goods.

All of us need to take cue from Andrew Niskers film GARBAGE The Revolution Starts at Home and  realize the astronomical amount of waste we are collectively creating turning the earth into one giant garbage can as shown in  his film. The right approach will be to think of innovative ways to recycle waste both domestic and business at source.