Introduction

Introduction

Waste materials (or rubbish) especially household wastes, are called garbage. It is called 'kooda' in Hindi. Every household produces a lot of garbage (or wastes) daily which is collected in dustbins. The shops, offices and schools also produce garbage or rubbish everyday.

Garbage

The peels of fruits and vegetables, left-over cooked food and fallen leaves of potted plants are thrown away as garbage. Every household buys a large number of packaged products such as flour (atla), rice, pulses, biscuits, chocolates, milk and oil, etc., which are packed in plastic bags, cardboard cartons, paper wrappers, plastic containers, tins and many other kinds of packing materials. All the packing materials are useless and go out as garbage. We also tear off various kinds oil papers (including those from our notebooks) and throw them into dustbins. The waste papers also generate garbage.In every household, some old, unwanted and useless plastic objects such as polythene bags, plastic bottles and containers, broken plastic toys, etc., keep on collecting which are ultimately thrown as garbage.

Many old and useless metal objects such as used aluminium foils, rusted iron grills, door handles, etc., find their way to garbage. The old clothes, discarded shoes and slippers are also thrown away as garbage.

Every time we throw away something, we are producing garbage.

Garbage should be removed from our homes and surroundings regularly, if the garbage is not removed our homes and surroundings will become dirty. Some of the garbage (like left-over food) will rot giving off foul smell. The rotting garbage will become a breeding ground for disease-causing organisms such as cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes. They will spread diseases to us.

Dealing with Garbage

1. Garbage has two types of components in it: useful components and useless components.
2. Those things present in garbage which can be converted into useful products, recycled or reused are called useful components.
3. Those things present in garbage which can neither be used in any way nor recycled are called useless components.

The useful components of garbage are also of two types :

1. Fruit and vegetable peels, left-over cooked food (called kitchen waste) and fallen leaves, etc., which can be converted into compost.
2. Used paper, some plastics, glass and metal articles which can be recycled or reused.

The first step in dealing with garbage is to separate useful part of the garbage (which can be converted into compost, recycled or reused) from the non-useful part which cannot be used at all. The separation of useful part of garbage can be done in our homes ourselves. It is also done at garbage dumps by the people called ragpickers.

Some Garbage Rots Whereas Other Does Not

Biodegradable

The part of garbage which can rot (or decompose) in nature to form harmless substances is called biodegradable. e.g., fruits and vegetable peels, left–over food, leaves, paper, cotton, wool, silk, leather and cow dung.

Biodegradable garbage is also known as organic waste.

Non Biodegradable

The part of garbage which does not rot (or decompose) in nature is called non-biodegradable. The garbage which consists of plastics, glass and metal objects is non-biodegradable.

In fact, all the garbage which is not derived from plants or animal sources is non-biodegradable. Getting rid of non-biodegradable part of garbage is a problem because it does not rot or decay when buried and some of it (like plastics) gives poisonous gases when burned.

In some cities and towns, the Municipality provides separate dustbins for collecting the two types of garbage. These dustbins have different colours: one is green and the other is blue. The green dustbin is for collecting kitchen wastes and other plant and animal wastes (which can be used to make compost). The blue dustbin is for collecting waste materials such as plastics, glass objects and metal articles which can be recycled and used again. We will now discuss the various methods of getting rid of garbage.