Waste Evaluation

Waste collected after 2 weeks (Photo was taken on 9 November 2016 at 9am)

Waste generated on average a day

Waste collection started on 26 October 2016 and ended on 8 November 2016

After collecting my trash for 2 weeks to monitor the amount of trash I produce, I realized that most of the trash that I have produced and collected was plastic-based. I have also realized that a simple act of buying breakfast for the next day would produce a lot of waste as there was food packaging for my breakfast which was placed in a plastic bag. After evaluating my waste, I realized that the top 3 items that I produce are plastic bags, food wrappers and tissue papers.

Plastic bags are very harmful to the environment as they are non-biodegradable and take a very long period of time to breakdown. This means that when discarded, plastic bags will stay in the area where they are thrown for a long time. As such, plastic bags have a high chance to be blown away by wind to environmental ecosystems such as oceans and forests where plastic bags might be mistaken as food by animals and cause the animals to die from the toxicity of plastic bags. When burned, plastic bags also emit toxic gases that are harmful to human health (Greener ideal, 2012; Wagner, n.d.).

Tissue papers are something that almost everyone uses in everyday life as it brings many conveniences to the user for simple things like drying their hands or blowing their noses. However, just like plastic bags, tissue papers have severe environmental impacts on the environment. Tissue papers are biodegradable and hence have little environmental impact when thrown away (Sanitary Care Products Asia Inc, 2013). However, it is during the manufacturing of tissue papers where tissue paper harms the environment. During the production of tissue paper, trees are chopped down to make tissue paper as it is a raw material for manufacturing tissue paper. However, this process of logging can lead to deforestation which causes problems such as global warming. Tissue paper also require a large amount of resources such as water and electricity to produce. As such, a lot of pollution is emitted when fossil fuels are burned to produce electricity (Poppenheimer, 2013).

Lastly, food packaging is another harmful waste that I tend to produce. Food packaging can be made of various materials such as the commonly used plastic, paper or even polystyrene and hence are difficult to handle as plastic and polystyrene are not biodegradable and hence poses a threat to marine life if they get washed into oceans and waterways. As food packaging such as plastic and polystyrene are non-biodegradable, they will take up spaces in landfills and will pose a problem to land-scarce countries such as Singapore as an alternative solution will be needed to handle waste (Grossman 2014).

References

Greener ideal. (2012). How do Plastic Bags Affect Our Environment. Retrieved from 

https://greenerideal.com/lifestyle/0613-how-do-plastic-bags-affect-our-environment/

Grossman, E. (2014, October). When it comes to food packaging, what we don’t know

could hurt us. ensia. Retrieved from http://ensia.com/features/when-it-comes-to-food-packaging-what-we-dont-know-could-hurt-us/

Poppenheimer, L. (2013). Paper Facial Tissue – History and Environmental Impact.

Green Groundswell. Retrieved from http://greengroundswell.com/paper-facial-tissue-history-and-environmental-impact/2013/12/05/

Sanitary Care Products Asia Inc. (2012). Is tissue paper biodegradable?. Retrieved

from http://www.scpa.com.ph/is-tissue-paper-biodegradable/

Wagner, J. (n.d.). The Effects of Plastic Bags on Environment. HealthGuidance.

Retrieved from http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/14901/1/The-Effects-of-Plastic-Bags-on-Environment.html