What role can I play in waste management?

several ways that contributes significantly towards a healthy environment is the maintenance of clean surroundings that are free from any form of waste be it solid or liquid.
The Environmental Management Act (Cap 20.27) stipulates that it is an offence to discard, dump or leave any litter on any land, street or road except in a container provided for such purposes or at a place which is specifically designated for such purposes.

We should therefore take full responsibility to ensure that we manage waste so that we maintain a clean, safe and healthy environment. We can manage waste by practising the “Rs” namely: Reducing, Reusing, Recycling, Rethinking, Refusing, Recovering, Redesigning and Responding,
Reduction

Waste reduction is the process and the policy of decreasing the amount of waste produced by a person or a society. Waste reduction involves efforts to minimise unwanted material during manufacture and consumption. For the same commercial output, fewer materials can be used resulting in the production of less waste. Waste generated at any given point must be as low as practicable. Reducing waste will reduce costs that are associated with waste disposal and will also increase the lifespan of sanitary landfills. Everyone can help to reduce waste generated by adapting to the following practices;

Avoiding impulse buying; only buy goods that you need.

When choosing between two similar products, you should opt for the one with the least unnecessary packaging and support companies that use less packaging by buying their product.

Consider whether concentrated products are appropriate for your needs. They often require less packaging and less energy to transport to the store, saving money as well as resources. For example, you can buy concentrated dishwashing liquid rather than the one that is already diluted which has bigger packaging material.

At the grocery store, we should consider purchasing items such as tomatoes, garlic and mushrooms that are not packed rather than those that are in pre-packaged plastic or paper trays.

Switch on to the use of electronic methods at the workplace wherever possible. Use of paper in the office for circulars, memos and other letters result in generation of waste. Messages can be sent via electronic means that do not require paper thus preventing waste paper generation.

Use energy saver bulbs to save energy and cut on cost.

Adopt a “clean plate” policy rather than cooking for the bin.

Reuse
To reuse is to use an item more than once that you would normally throw away after using it once. This includes conventional reuse where the item is used again for the same function and new-life reuse where it is used for a different function. By taking useful products and exchanging them, without reprocessing, reuse help save time, money, energy and resources.
Some of the ways that we can reuse goods is by:

Selling or donating goods that you no longer need. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.

Mending clothes instead of throwing them away.

Turning boxes into either herb planters or file storage.

Reusing water after washing, you can use it for watering rather than using clean water to do so. This does not only conserve water but will also result in reduced water bills.

Using reusable cloth napkins rather than using the disposable diapers which will eventually become waste after single use.

Use of shopping bags or baskets

Recycling
Recycling is the breaking down of used items into raw materials, which are used to make new items. Recycling means that the waste product will go through a mechanical process in order to change its form so that it can become useful again. Recycling prevents pressure on virgin resources, reduces waste and saves energy.
Therefore, this will save our forests. Recycling protects the environment by:

Reducing the use of raw materials.

Reducing the impact of landfill on the environment.

Reducing air pollution

Reducing energy expenditure, because less energy is required to use recovered recyclable materials than to produce products from virgin materials.

Reducing unsightly and unhealthy litter, particularly in pristine areas and living environment.

Rethinking
As consumers we should rethink whenever we want to buy any product. Most of the time, we find ourselves buying lots of goods that we do not really need maybe because the item will be cheap.
Therefore some of the questions you should ask yourself before purchasing any product are:

Do I really need the product?
What impacts does the product have on the environment?
How many times can l use it before throwing it away?

Recover
To recover waste means to convert waste into resources. You can go around collecting paper that has been thrown away and sell it to the National Wastepaper Collection where it is then recycled to produce newsprint paper and some toilet paper which is much cheaper compared to the one that is made straight from wood pulp.
Refuse/Reject
We can also reduce or prevent waste by refusing to buy products that are not environmentally friendly.

Refuse to buy thin plastic bags which cannot be reused
Refuse to accept other promotional material such as pamphlets that may come along with some products, as they will end up as litter in the environment.

Respond.
Lastly, we should all respond to waste management by educating others on source reduction by sharing on the various ways of reducing waste which have been mentioned earlier.