Waste Reduction & Recycling

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STE(A)M Activity - What a Waste! The True Cost of Fashion

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What's the problem?

Waste production across the world is at an all time high. The average American generates around 1,800 pounds of waste each year, adding up to around 300 million tons of waste produced annually from just the U.S. alone. Worldwide, the amount of waste produced is around 10 billion tonnes annually. With this absurd amount of waste production, we often lack proper places to store it and dispose of it properly. This is an example of  improper waste disposal and includes things like illegally dumping waste into the ocean, littering, and leaving waste to pollute the environment around you, and contaminating recyclables with non-recyclable materials. Current waste management infrastructure and technologies are limited in both capacity and efficiency, contributing to pollution and damage to ecosystems. A lack of public understanding about recycling, waste management, and the costs associated with handling waste further strain these systems and contribute to pollution. 

Why should we care?

Proper waste management, as well as simply producing less waste, helps to protect our environment from pollution, conserve our natural resources, and preserve natural areas and green spaces for us, and our future generations. By reducing our pollution, we improve both the air quality as well as the quality of our water, helping to protect both the health of the public as well as the health of the environment. By practicing proper disposal tactics, we can help to reduce climate change and its harmful effects as landfills happen to be a significant contributor to the rising greenhouse gasses within our atmosphere and increased pollution within our groundwater and soil due to harmful leachate from the waste. Effective waste management also has economic benefits as it can lower costs for both businesses and individuals, create jobs, and strengthen our economy. By protecting our environment and our health from improperly disposed waste, we can move closer to a safer and more sustainable society. 

What can we do?

Reducing improperly disposed waste, as well as simply reducing the amount of waste that you produce, is easy. First, make sure that you are disposing of your waste properly. Never put non-recyclables into the recycle bin, never throw harmful chemicals into the regular trash bin, and most importantly, never litter or dispose of your waste into the environment. Instead, use Recyclepedia, an online guide to proper recycling in South Florida, as well as following Miami-Dade’s guide to harmful chemical disposal, to make sure that you are disposing of your waste the right way. Second, when you are shopping, no matter what you are shopping for, think green. Choose products based on their durability, how sustainable their manufacturing is, as well as that specific products ease of recycling in order to help reduce your waste. Also, make sure to try and purchase goods that are made from recycled materials, as this creates a demand that encourages the practice of recycling. To further reduce your waste production, you should be donating or selling items you no longer need or want that are still in usable condition, reusing or repurposing old items to give them new life, and composting in order to reduce the amount of waste in the landfill.