What are the dangers of not sorting garbage?

Everyone generates a lot of garbage every day, some of which is domestic waste, and some is medical waste. There are many types of garbage. Therefore, garbage needs to be sorted when it is cleaned. If the garbage is not sorted, it will not only affect the properties of the soil, but may also pollute groundwater, which has a great impact on human health. The following specifically introduces the hazards of not sorting garbage.

Everyone throws out a lot of garbage every day. In some areas with better garbage management, most of the garbage is treated harmlessly through sanitary landfill, incineration, composting, etc., while in more places, garbage is often simply piled up or landfilled, causing odor to spread and polluting the soil and groundwater.

The cost of harmless garbage disposal is very high. Depending on the treatment method, the cost of treating one ton of garbage ranges from about one hundred yuan to several hundred yuan. People consume resources in large quantities, produce on a large scale, consume in large quantities, and produce garbage in large quantities. The consequences would be disastrous.

Judging from the methods of classifying domestic waste in cities at home and abroad, the classification is generally based on the composition and amount of waste generated, combined with local waste resource utilization and treatment methods. For example, Germany generally divides waste into paper, glass, metal and plastic; Australia generally divides waste into compostable waste, recyclable waste and non-recyclable waste; Japan generally divides waste into plastic bottles, recyclable plastics, other plastics, resource waste, large waste, combustible waste, non-combustible waste, hazardous waste, etc.

The advantages of garbage classification are as follows:

Reduce space

Some substances in domestic waste are not easily degraded, causing serious erosion of the land. By sorting garbage and removing recyclable and non-biodegradable materials, the amount of garbage can be reduced by more than 60%.

Reducing pollution

At present, most of the garbage disposal in my country adopts the method of sanitary landfill or even simple landfill, which occupies tens of thousands of acres of land; and there are flies and insects flying around, sewage overflowing, and stench, which seriously pollutes the environment.

Discarded batteries contain toxic substances such as metallic mercury and cadmium, which can cause serious harm to humans; waste plastics in the soil can lead to reduced crop yields; and discarded waste plastics are often accidentally eaten by animals, leading to animal deaths. So recycling can also reduce harm.

Turning waste into treasure

China uses 4 billion plastic fast food boxes, 500 million to 700 million instant noodle bowls, and billions of pairs of disposable chopsticks every year, which account for 8% to 15% of domestic waste. One ton of waste plastic can be recycled into 600 kilograms of diesel. Recycling 1,500 tons of waste paper can prevent the felling of trees used to produce 1,200 tons of paper. One ton of cans can be melted into one ton of high-quality aluminum blocks, which can reduce the mining of 20 tons of aluminum ore. 30% to 40% of domestic waste can be recycled, and we should cherish this resource which has great benefits but small cost. You can also use cans to make pencil cases, which is environmentally friendly and saves resources.

Moreover, other substances in the garbage can also be converted into resources. For example, food, plants and fabrics can be composted to produce organic fertilizer; garbage incineration can generate electricity, provide heating or cooling; bricks, tiles and ash can be processed into building materials, etc. Various solid wastes mixed together are garbage, but they become resources when sorted. If the resource potential contained in the recycling of domestic waste can be fully tapped, Beijing alone can obtain economic benefits of 1.1 billion yuan each year. It can be seen that if the garbage generated in the consumption process is sorted and recycled in time, it will be the best way to solve the garbage problem.

Main Issues

Recycling shrinkage

State-run waste recycling is shrinking. Our country is one of the first countries to propose garbage classification and collection. Take Beijing as an example: in 1965, there were more than 2,000 state-owned scrap collection stations within the Second Ring Road. After the 1980s, its scale shrank severely; in 1997, there were only 16 state-owned scrap collection stations within the Third Ring Road. There are relatively few equipment for waste sorting in my country today. The cost of mechanized sorting is high and the scale is limited, which cannot meet the needs of waste sorting.

Scavengers

There are many problems with replacing them with an army of scavengers. 82,000 scavengers "pick up" 930 million yuan from Beijing every year. At the same time, they also transform waste into new resources, which objectively reduces the government's burden of garbage disposal, reduces 1.8 billion yuan in disposal costs, and extends the service life of landfill sites. However, these spontaneous scavengers operate without a license and lack regulations, inspections and constraints, which leads to serious secondary pollution during the process of picking up, collecting, transporting and processing garbage, and they themselves also have a high incidence of infectious diseases.

Garbage Chute

Garbage chutes have become a nuisance to the people. Beijing is now full of high-rise buildings, and garbage chutes have become sanitary blind spots in many places. The dirty and messy garbage chutes are full of mosquitoes and flies, and the scavengers' random rummaging makes residents have to cover their noses every time they pass by. The residents on the lower floors cannot escape, and dare not open their doors even in the hot summer. People are looking forward to the implementation of new waste recycling methods.

Bag garbage

Bagged trash is not a long-term solution. Some places in Beijing have begun to implement closed garbage chutes and use plastic bags for regular recycling to reduce the impact of open-air garbage dumping on the environment. From February to May 2000, Beijing organized a large-scale green consumption survey on "developing green circulation and advocating green consumption". The survey results show that 89.91% of shopping bags used by consumers are reused, of which 57.05% are used as garbage bags.

Don’t know how to sort garbage

The confusion of sorting trash cans. Although some streets in Beijing have adopted classified trash bins, many people do not know how to sort the trash and do not know what is recyclable trash. In some communities, attempts to sort garbage have been made due to the advocacy of non-governmental environmental protection organizations. However, the garbage trucks of the Environmental Sanitation Bureau have dumped the sorted garbage together and taken it away, which has seriously dampened people's enthusiasm for environmental protection and produced negative effects. It can be seen that without the support of a complete recycling industry system that organizes procurement, transportation, sales, processing, and finished product markets, garbage classification cannot generate economic benefits and can only be a waste of time and money.

Bury too much, burn too much

With the development of economy and the improvement of people's living standards, the garbage problem has become increasingly prominent. Of my country's 668 cities, two-thirds are surrounded by garbage belts. These garbage cannot be buried or burned endlessly, causing a series of serious hazards.

The potential for waste resource utilization continues to grow with the development of living standards and economy. Among the components of garbage, metals, paper, plastics and glass are considered to be directly recyclable resources, accounting for 42.9% of the total garbage. The direct recycling rate should be no less than 33%.