Every year on November 15, a number of countries celebrate the environmental holiday — World Recycling Day, or World Recycling Day, in order to attract the attention of authorities, the public and industrial structures to this topic.
The main tasks of secondary processing — are solving the problem of limited resources, reducing the cost of finished products through the use of cheaper raw materials and combating environmental pollution.
The holiday dates back to 1997, when US residents first celebrated America Recycles Day (which can be translated as «The Day America Recycles Waste»), which was held by environmentalists to encourage Americans who recycle waste and buy products made from recycled materials. Over the years, this holiday began to be held in other countries.
In the modern world, the problem of waste accumulation is especially acute for two main reasons, the consequences of which can be very deplorable for humanity.
On the one hand, the reserves of natural resources available on Earth are not unlimited. Their irrational use has led to the fact that to date humanity has already spent approximately a third of these resources. That is why it is important to spend them sparingly, while at the same time looking for an alternative to them and recycling already used raw materials.
On the other hand, one of the reasons for global warming is the «greenhouse effect», including due to huge mountains of industrial and household waste. People throw away tons of plastic bags, all kinds of packaging, tires, household appliances and other waste, the decomposition of which will last for centuries.
The problem of waste recycling — is the same for all humanity. But, unfortunately, today states are fighting it separately from each other. However, many developed countries show good results, recycling from 40% to 60% of waste. Europe – has been especially successful on this continent; already proven methods are actively used and new waste processing technologies regularly appear. For example, the famous Austrian waste processing plant «Spittelau» heats residential areas. And in Japan they build islands out of garbage.
In Russia, the situation with waste processing is still sad: garbage is buried in landfills or burned in factories, releasing poisonous fumes into the atmosphere, work with the population is carried out poorly, and irreparable resources are extracted from the bowels of the earth in huge quantities.
Separately collected waste — is not garbage, but secondary raw materials from which you can make the goods a person needs without additional burden on the environment. According to experts, today at least half of the waste can be recycled.
«Garbage needs to be disposed of wisely, or even better, — must be recycled, giving already used raw materials a second life», — environmentalists believe. First of all, in their opinion, a way out of the critical situation must be sought at the state level. This could be the creation of a specific waste strategy, the transfer of production capacity to low-waste technologies and other methods that will allow more intensive recycling of waste or reduce its quantity.
Postcard «November 15 — Recycling Day»