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Let's imagine for a moment several sorting baskets for all of Latin America.
Let's imagine that each country had proper waste disposal and became responsible for its own waste.
Let's imagine not being anyone's basket: that no developed country throws its garbage on us.
Let's imagine for a moment a committed, equitable, fair world that does not profit or prioritize its interests, without poverty, but also without great wealth.
If that world existed, surely the waste would not cause diseases in people near garbage dumps, people would not die trying to eat from the garbage, we would not be throwing away waste that could be part of the circular economy.
Waste is the dark side of our society: what nobody wants to see, what doesn't matter, what is hidden and better to cover it up than shed light on it.
However, the lack of awareness of actions that we carry out as humanity, such as incorrect waste management, is one of the causes of global warming.
Yes, as it is read.
One of the causes of the increase in the earth's temperature from the pre-industrial period to today is the mismanagement of garbage.
This is due to the emission of greenhouse gases, in this case methane gas.
The decomposition of waste and its mixture (organic, recyclable and non-recyclable) ends up contaminating air, water and land.
According to the World-Wide Waste report, many countries are becoming exclusively waste importers, like Mexico, or exclusively exporters, like China.
According to the World Bank's “What A Waste Global Database”, the country that produces the most municipal solid waste is China, with 395 million tons per year;
followed by the United States, with 265 million tons per year.
Between 2018 and 2022, Ecuador illegally imported 48.8 thousand tons of plastic garbage from the US, reports Basura Cero Ecuador.
The World Bank report, What a Waste 2.0, details that in Latin America, the ranking of those that generate the most waste are: Mexico (1.16 kilos per capita, per day), Chile (1.15 kilos per day), Argentina (1.14 kilos per day), the Dominican Republic (1.08 kilos per day) and in fifth place, Brazil (1.04 kilos per day).
But I don't want to depress them.
Everything has a solution.
At least, I think we are on time with these tips:
1. Become aware
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The first thing is to ask ourselves where they take my garbage.
Where do the daily tons that we generate excessively go?
And the paper and cardboard that we don't recycle, that plastic bag that we use for a minute?
Where do disposable wipes, cotton, dirty diapers, food scraps, like rancid lettuce that we don't compost, go?
And the batteries: where do those batteries go that we don't know what to do with them?
When they leave our house, the garbage generally travels by truck.
I don't want to spoil, but, in general, they bury themselves.
The most common places where waste is disposed of are open dumps.
Then follow the sanitary landfills, that is, places where, with applied technology, they try to reduce the polluting effects of garbage.
A garbage mapping in more than 1,800 cities in 164 countries, carried out by scientists from all over the world, called Waste Atlas, estimates that the generation of garbage worldwide reaches 1,900 million tons per year, of which 70% ends up in garbage dumps and landfills and only 19% is recycled.
2. Rethink, separate and recycle
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The second step is to be a waste analyst.
Ask yourself what you throw away, but also what you consume (although that is another topic).
And depending on what shot, start to separate it by categories.
Let's start with three baskets:
One for recyclables: cardboard and paper, metals, certain clean, dry plastics, and glass.
Another for compost, the process of natural transformation of organic waste into fertilizer for the earth.
The one to discard: it is the one that cannot be recycled or composted.
And the one that we manage to avoid since it ends up in landfills or landfills.
3. Identify what happens in your neighborhood
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The third thing is to see if there is an adequate recycling system in your city.
In the world, according to the Waste Atlas, 19% of the waste generated is recycled.
But that's an average.
There are countries where less than 6% is recovered.
So, you have to see what are the days, generally called "green", so that you can dispose of everything recyclable, if there are the famous green points, where to take it, or community composting systems.
Ideally, local government fees should include the cost of recyclability.
That is to say, that in the taxes they contemplate an item of funds destined to the management of recyclables by cooperatives and recycling centers.
If there is no public waste separation policy in your district, surely there are recyclers, a fundamental link in this chain.
According to UN Habitat reports, more than 200 cities increased their recycling rates from 40% to 80% thanks to mechanisms for integrating recyclers.
Therefore, it is advisable to look for a cooperative or individual cartoneros with whom to establish a bond and thus bring them closer to recyclables.
Yes, I know.
Surely you think how lazy to look for where to take it, when it should be a task for the local government.
But think that life is a boomerang.
I believe that you are doing it for the good of the planet, come back to you.
And if you don't know where to take it, there are digital initiatives that make those steps easier, such as Mapa Trash, for now only in Argentina, which is an interactive map that gathers geolocated information and satellite views of open-air dumps, landfills, wastewater treatment plants, solid urban waste treatment and recycling cooperatives.
There is also the Federal Recycling Map that makes the recycling value chain visible and seeks to strengthen the Comprehensive and Inclusive Management of Urban Solid Waste (GIIRSU) in that same country.
4. Reduce and reuse
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Another essential point is to rethink the industry and our consumption models.
Based on reports from Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), a global NGO that imagines a future free of plastic pollution, world-renowned multinationals are leading the plastic pollution records.
For this reason, it is extremely important to try to avoid disposables and the excessive use of plastics.
It is key to promote reuse, products that reduce waste generation, recyclability systems and support small projects that work with discards that the industry throws away.
5. Claim rights
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The last key is to have laws according to the planet that we need.
In Latin America, we find several disparities in this regard.
According to UN Habitat reports, only in Argentina 6% is recycled, a very low number.
The best located country is Colombia with the 22nd place for having a great advance in legislative matters and also in the recycling sector.
There, for example, it is mandatory to have more than one waste basket in public or massive spaces and institutions.
While in Argentina, a battle is still taking place with the packaging law: a norm with social inclusion that seeks to promote recyclable and biodegradable materials, returnability systems and the formality of work in the cardboard sector.
Another pending legislation in several countries is the ban on single-use plastics.
In this sense, work is being done with representatives of 160 countries in the Global Plastics Treaty that seeks to fight against plastic pollution by 2024. And thus avoid a more than worrying alert: that by 2050 there will be no more plastics than fish in the world. sea.
Finally, in the Latin imaginary the idea that garbage is burned is very strong.
Something that still happens in some parts of the region.
“Zero waste is the conservation of nature through the responsible production, consumption, reuse and recovery of products, packaging and materials without burning them and without discharging them to the ground, water or air, so that they do not threaten the environment or human health”, recalls the Global Alliance for Alternatives to Incineration, GAIA, a network of grassroots groups and national and regional alliances representing more than 1,000 organizations from 92 countries.
So, if garbage is a global problem, what can we as humanity do to deal with the problem?
What should all the actors involved do (municipalities, provincial and national governments, international organizations, companies, industries, the general public)?
How do we generate less and recycle more?
Is a zero waste world possible?
Yes I know.
There are many questions.
I don't know if all the answers exist or what they are.
But there is something I am sure of: the change begins with you.