One household generate about 1443 kilograms of garbage per year. This means that one family dumps around 15 tons of garbage in 10 years. Some waste can be reduced if the materials are reused or recycled. Here are some waste we throw away every day: paper and cardboard (boxes, wrapping paper, newspapers, magazines); food scraps of food that we have not been able to eat; plastic boxes of various products; nylon bags; scrap metal; rubber waste, metal waste.

Waste or garbage collected by a household is disposed of in special bins. The color coding for the different waste bins is as follows – green for glass, yellow for metal, blue for paper and cardboard. Color coding is designed to promote recycling.

Garbage is exported by specialized transport – trucks with markings. Cleaning staff take care of emptying the trash cans and do so regularly to prevent build-up. Their work is very important for maintaining the cleanliness of the city.

Where the garbage initially goes

Whether tucked away in a trash can, dumped in a trash can, or elsewhere, the trash can make several stops before reaching its final destination.

Transfer stations

Transfer stations provide temporary space for garbage trucks to dispose of waste. Here they are crushed and made more compact to prepare for transfer. They are then loaded into larger trucks that will take the garbage to its final destination.

Recycling facilities

Material recycling facilities are places where they are sorted to separate useful materials from the waste stream before they reach their final destination.

There are two types of waste – clean and dirty. Clean are recyclable materials that have already been sorted into homes or factories. Dirty waste is part of recycled items that have been mixed with garbage, which requires more manual labour to sort. Modern recycling stations include various technologies for the recovery of recyclable materials, such as magnets, shredders and current separators – these are machines for sorting ferrous and non-ferrous metals.

Once our waste passes through compactors and sorting machines, it is taken to one of the following four destinations (field – landfill, recycling plant, waste incinerator, anaerobic digesters), where it will be disposed of, recycled or in some cases used for energy production.

The time for decomposition of different substances and substances is different. One plastic straw decomposes in 200 years, one plastic saucer in 450 years, and one plastic bag in 500 years. A battery decomposes in 1 century (a thousand years). The absolute record is the glass bottle, which takes 1,000,000 years to disappear completely.

Children can learn to collect waste separately from an early age – always having trash cans available, preferably with sections for different types (paper, glass, metal,food) waste. Garbage sorting is important, it teaches us responsibility to planet Earth. For convenience, we can put labels on several buckets about what content to have or buy them in the appropriate colors. It is a great idea to buy products that are made from recycled materials and those that can still be recycled.

Reusable items reduce costs. Buying household utensils and reusable items is an important part of environmental thinking. This may include cups, cutlery, containers, cloth towels and more. It is always good to use eco-bags and containers. The more parents reuse an item in front of their children, the more they unconsciously teach them the importance of recycling many things at home. It is not necessary to throw everything away. Especially not items that are not yet worn and are healthy.

A more advanced way to implement environmental waste disposal is composting. A compost pit can be created in the yard and food and organic waste can be placed in it. In this way, they learn that nothing is thrown away. Food waste is turned into fertilizer, which is used to feed the plants in the garden.

Leftovers that are not spoiled can always be shared with friends or donated to orphanages.

 Art objects can be made from such materials with which to make home decorations.