It feels hardly plausible to go plastic free these days. Still, even if we can’t eradicate the problem in a short duration, many more ways and reasons support the need to reduce plastic waste in our homes or society, to make a positive and long-lasting impact on our environment.
What happens to all those plastic materials after we are done with them?
We just throw them in dustbins and believe that it gets recycled or reused, but only a tiny portion of them gets recycled. Roughly 9-10% of plastic produced by the entire earth’s population gets recycled, which implies that the remaining is sent to landfills or ends up as litter. And the debris is further disposed to our rivers and oceans, which is a serious matter of concern.
It would be wonderful if we fix this problem, but it’s not as simple as it looks, but it’s not impossible. We can start recycling from our households, it would be a fundamental step, and everyone could afford it to execute efficiently.
“Making a mere change to reduce plastic waste can make a remarkable difference over time!”
Recycling can also make economic profits. In 2014 Australians were generating $730 million by just recycling plastic bottles! Recycling helps locals raise incomes, preserves local recycling jobs, and enables them to continue taking advantage of scarce resources like rivers, agricultural lands, etc.
What is plastic recycling?
Plastic recycling is the process or method of recovering and reprocessing waste or recycled or used plastic materials into a sound, durable, cheap product. As plastics are non-biodegradable substances, recycling is thus critical. Global efforts are also to reduce plastics and other solid waste polluting or damaging the environment. Therefore, the accumulation of plastic is problematic.
Recycling of plastic bottles
Plastic water bottles are the worst enemy one can have inside our homes. We often use plastic bottles irresponsibly after use and thus harm the environment and cause pollution. With a few valuable skills of art, plastic bottles can come to practical use. For instance, we can cut off the bottom portion of plastic bottles and plant seedlings in them. These miniature, styled plant holders are easy to make and significantly add to your garden space. Therefore, we can get the best of waste in no time. Once in my school days, I used plastic bottles to make a hydroponics working model, which still works well after three years.
Create a Piggy Bank:
Craft a plastic container piggy bank and start cashing in on your bank! We can paint the entire container, so the amount inside is hidden. We can also leave it transparent to see how our savings are growing.
Reuse Plastic Bottles and Old Pens to Make a Sprinkler:
Simply drill holes in a one or two-liter bottle and hook it up in the garden. You can also recycle Ball-point pen bodies or caps of old pens that no longer work to get a more effective spray from our best out-of-the-waste sprinkler.
Hanging Gardens:
Concerning the present scenario, because of overpopulation availability of land is a significant issue, so garden lovers have to compromise with their garden space. But they can switch to wall gardens or hanging gardens. It won’t consume the land and is cost-effective.
Bottle scoop:
We can cut containers in a shape that takes the form of a ladle or spoon, which could be further used for various things.
Build an Eco-brick:
Thousands of plastic containers lie in landfills, oceans, and drains every year as they can only be recycled a limited amount of times. So despite just throwing them away, we can use them to make durable and rugged eco-bricks. These bricks can be used for making modern furniture, and no doubt can be used as a decorative item for our garden and walls & also as a paperweight.
There can be many more ways to recycle plastics at home, but we can also contribute to recycling plastics outside our homes:
1. Wash the bottles or any other plastic material before sending them for recycling. Also, Ensure the plastic is thoroughly cleaned before doing anything with it.
2. Remove tags if present. It’s essential to keep paper away from plastic. Otherwise, we don’t recycle it. Also, ensure that the removed form is not thrown away and should be appropriately recycled.
3. Crush the bottles for easy and cheap transportation. This is done if we have too much plastic waste, which we have. This way, we can place them in another container for transport to our nearby recycling industry or recycling plant.
Written by Shorya Sethia
Image source: Google
NSS IIT Bombay 