It seems like climate change is on everyone’s mind these days. Brave young people like Greta Thunberg have started to work to organize themselves to protest the way older generations have been treating the planet that we all call home.

That is because more young people than ever before are suffering from mental health conditions as a result of climate change. Anxiety, depression, and more are found in increasing numbers in people under twenty-five. Click https://psychiatry.org/patients-families/climate-change-and-mental-health-connections for more information about climate-related mental health issues.

While some might dismiss these issues as irrelevant, it is actually an indicator of how dire the situation has become. While it might seem like there are few option available to us to help heal our planet, in reality there are many hardworking professionals doing their best to help change things for the better.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at sustainable waste management and its role in helping to stop or even reverse the negative effects of climate change.

History

In the nineteen seventies, the clean climate movement began. It was started by a few radical people who wanted to make a change. They protested and marched to get the word out about the way our waste management was impacting our world.

At the beginning, this was purely a fringe movement, but through hard work it became a part of the mainstream. Today there are climate activists from all over the globe who are interested in finding unique ways to deal with our waste and ensure that it is being treated in the best possible way to prevent permanent damage to our eco system.

Many smart, qualified people are working on new ways to treat our waste product so that our resources are used efficiently and cleanly. You may be asking yourself, what is sustainable waste management and can it be of help in solving our current climate issues? If so, you’ll want to read on for more information.

Sustainable Waste Management

Sustainable waste management is a term that refers to any way to deal with waste that can be conducted in a way that is sustainable. In other words, it is a process that seeks to find environmentally friendly solutions to our existing culture.

Although its name makes it sound like it is one process, it is actually a way of organizing and planning for many different solutions for unique problems. 

Let’s take a look at a few of these situations.

Food Waste

One of the greatest sources of waste in the United States comes from food. This might be surprising to the ten percent of the population that is food insecure. This is a term that means that a person or household does not have regular, reliable access to enough food to keep them well-nourished.

As inflation rates continue to rise and effect food prices as well as other everyday goods, there is a high probability that food insecurity will continue to grow. Click the link for more information about this topic. 

Much of the food that ends up in landfills is thrown out due to size or color. In other words, they are disposed of because of cosmetic conditions rather than because they are unusable.

Sustainable waste management in this instance would entail finding a way to distribute this “ugly” food to people in need. Many services have started up over the last five years dedicated to purchasing and distributing ugly food at lower rates in order to help combat this waste source.

This is one of many examples in which sustainable waste management is enacted and benefits every party involved. This is frequently the case with eco-friendly solutions. They not only benefit humanity in the long run, but they can have an immediate real-world impact on people’s lives as well. 

Paper and Cardboard

While paper and cardboard are both recyclable, combined they create the number one source of waste in our landfills. Increasing the rates at which we recycle these resources will not only cut back on material in landfills, but will also slow the rate at which new trees are harvested;.

In this instance, sustainable waste management would entail educating businesses and the populace about the importance and ease of properly recycling these materials. It can also be easy to re-use some of these products without needing to reprocess them. An example would be using misprinted forms as scratch paper. There are many solutions available that are inexpensive to enact. 

These are just a few examples of the methods available to us to help combat climate change. There are many, many more.

We are in our current precarious state because many climate-insensitive policies have been allowed to continue for decades. The solutions to these problems will need to be creative, widespread, and clear in order to make a change.