Marco Olivares

considering buying these. 

Hi Marco, it is awesome to hear that you are taking initiative to change something that seems out of your reach. I can definitely also do better by making a point of recycling and composting my respective waste instead of just throwing it in the trash. This might seem a bit unrelated, but I just learned a bit about sustainable fashion and I think it relates to you trying to manage your waste better. Practicing sustainable fashion can reduce the amount of waste you create and lower your overall carbon footprint. I would definitely recommend practices such as thrifting, passing down clothes, and purchasing from companies with ethical and sustainable practices. Best of luck to you as you continue to improve on waste management!

Hi Marco! Your post made me realize that we truly do not have a widely enforced recycling system that I once thought we, as a country, did. It is very true that not all buildings or homes separate their regular trash from what can be recycled and that bundle of mixed trash all ends up in the regular trash dump, thus adding to the nutrient runoff into the ocean that occurs. I actually visited the site endplasticwaste.org to learn more about the benefits of recycling and realized that there are plastic waste free communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The site additionally is involved in the alliance to end plastic waste where they focus on sustainable waste management solutions in their projects to additionally create jobs and better conditions for the informal waste communities around the world. One of their projects is named Project STOP Jembrana where volunteers are helping build a new waste management system that will serve 160,000 residents in Jembrana and Negara and empower the local community to collect, sort, and sell their own waste. I have been thinking about this project’s mission for some time now and believe that this process of reselling reusable waste or recyclable waste may be a very good way to decrease the amount of plastic waste that leaks into the environment every year. Currently, Project STOP provides a self sufficient system which not only provides around 100 jobs but also prevents around 2,200 tons of waste from leaking into the environment and collects and processes a total of 18,000 tons of waste a year. If these are just the stats for one region of the world, imagine if we implemented these collaborative systems all over the world! We would save and redirect the plastic waste that leaks into the environment and adds to the climate crisis we are currently battling.

 Also, I think it is a fantastic plan for you and your roommates to separate your landfill because landfilling, as you know, is not a sustainable planning approach as it constitutes the largest source of human caused methane as greenhouse gas is 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. In fact, the EPA actually admitted that all landfill liners will eventually leak and their toxic leachate or garbage juice will seep and contaminate soil and groundwater supplies!