Waste. Out of sight, out of mind.

Have you ever put an item into the wrong bin? Food in landfill, landfill in recycling. Did your brain tell you for a second this is wrong and you still did it?

I know I have, and I am ashamed to admit it but hey, it’s the truth. I worked in the Hospitality Industry and this is a hard paced, busy, exhausting industry. There have been occasions in the past when, even though I realised the item was in the wrong bin, my body just didn't follow my brain's commands: Pick it up! This is wrong! You might contaminate the entire recycling bin! I swallowed my guilt by reasoning that I am "up the walls", in a hurry, it’s only a small thing. Have you ever been there? Has it happened to you?

The phrase “Out of sight, out of mind” seems appropriate in this case.

Recycling Waste

A while ago, I attended a workshop from Voice Ireland, a fantastic organisation that has spent the past few years going around the country, educating people on how to recycle properly. What I learned left me astounded. At the time, while considering myself a pretty green person, I realised there were in fact new sets of rules when it comes to recycling, and that I had been putting non recyclable items in my green bin!

I also learned that your recyclables need to be loose, washed and dried. Washed - I understood this before the workshop, but dry? That was a new one for me. I could not help but feeling a bit cheated and angry, angry at the waste companies among others, for not ensuring this information was given to every person in the country when paying for their bi-annual bin collection bill.

I realised that the entire contents of my recycling bin had possibly  ended up in landfill for the past 10 years. So my recycling efforts had been an absolute waste of time until I attended this workshop.

I am 100% sure that this has been the case in the majority of households in Ireland. So why has nobody spoken out sooner? The worst part is, there are people still out there that have not been educated on proper recycling. Only the other day I spoke to a dear friend that said to me “did you know you cannot put soft plastic in the recycling bin?” She was shocked, and I could not help but think there must be many, many others like her, that through no fault of their own, are still not recycling properly.

“Out of sight, out of mind”

So where should the guilt be placed on this issue? Is it with the individual that just did not know? That didn't look at the resources available to understand waste management better? I don’t think so.

Is it with the waste management companies for not informing their customers properly? Possibly. Personally however, I feel the guilt lies with our governments, and our waste management (or lack there of) policies.

Up until a couple of years ago, 95% of our recycling waste was sent to China. Once they refused it, I believe it is now being sent to Indonesia and other third world countries.

How can this be right? If our own country, which is fortunate to be located in the 'Western World', ~(with a richer economy than Indonesia), cannot deal properly with the waste that we produce, how can we expect poorer countries to manage it properly?

We have all seen those horrendous images of square miles of plastic in our oceans, in the rivers in India and Sri Lanka. Do we really believe that all that waste came from those countries? I am afraid not.

It came from our very own homes, and from the homes of most of the countries in Europe and America. It came from the boats that transported our waste to poorer countries, or they were simply missed managed by those same countries we are paying to take our waste.

Where do we start fixing the waste problem?

Recycling is not the solution to Waste management, the only possible solution is waste minimisation, but at policy level. 

I firmly believe the first step towards reducing our waste production would be to STOP EXPORTING IT TO OTHER COUNTRIES. 

Every country, should take care of its own waste, and if we run out of space, and our streets are littered with our own rubbish, then we might finally learn to produce less waste, as individuals, in our industries and create policies that forbid companies from unnecessary packaging, single use plastics and most of all unrecyclable items!! 

Another thing we need to do is to put waste management back into the state's hands. Privatisation has obviously not worked, it has put us into an even larger, unequal mess. I guess for the government it is the same…Out of sight, out of mind.

I revert back to anther article I wrote a couple of years ago  entitled “Was recycling the biggest swindle of the past 20 years?” and the more I think about it, the more I think this is unfortunately the truth. We have allowed the increase in production of plastic in our lives because we thought it was going to be recycled, when in reality, our own country was just sending it elsewhere.

If you are a hospitality business owner, please consider abolishing single use items at your business, consider looking at your waste production and take steps to minimise it to the best of your ability.

Until next week!