Recently, in an effort to be environmentally friendly, my family and I started sorting our rubbish for recycling. We bought a pack of tri-color plastic bags meant to help with sorting rubbish. White for plastics, green for paper and cardboard and blue for aluminum and glass.
We made sure to rinse out the recyclable materials and sorted them neatly into the color coordinated bags. So once the bags were full, it was time to take them to a recycling center. I drove to the nearest center, but to my dismay the center was closed and there was garbage piled up.
So I drove on the next recycling center, and it was the same thing. It was unattended and the garbage was piling up. A cursory glance revealed that whatever sorting that was done was rendered meaningless.
I drove to a third center and it too was closed but at the very least there was no pile up. Feeling exasperated I placed my recyclables at the designated bins. I wonder if my effort to recycle meant anything. Perhaps it all ends up in a landfill.
A quick search on the internet paints a grim picture. It was reported that less than 1% of the 3 million tons of waste actually gets recycled. I think it’s the same story for countries in Southeast Asia, recycling is just not working as people don’t really bother to sort their trash. And this problem will only get worse as the amount trash produced is expected to rise in the coming years.
Despite there being a law enacted to address this issue, it may be to little to late as it will take perhaps one or two generations for this practice to become engrained into the public’s psyche. Perhaps our country is better off looking into newer technologies such as waste-to-energy to solve the issue of our ever rising garbage problem.
Kee Thariq 