If you have heard of something called the “waste hierarchyâ€_x009d_ you may be wondering what that means. It is the order of priority of actions to be taken to reduce the amount of waste generated and to improve overall waste management processes and programs. The waste hierarchy consists of 3 R’s as follows:

• Reduce
• Reuse
• Recycle

I joined the industry because it is helping in the 3R PROCESS

Our work is mainly industrial base, we buy packaging waste from industries, sort it categories wise, the empty containers are washed, cleaned and make to reuse, rest which cannot be reuse is send for recycling to mills.

How does the 3R process help?

First, the product is made to be reused, which saves the new resources,

Second, the recycled ones are used multiple times with the process of repairing to make it useable. This helps to reduce the need for more fresh material to remake the product.

Third, recycling the product multiple times until it gets completely degraded.

The recycling process for manufacturing industries

For industries the waste is taken by authorized companies who own the consent of the pollution department. And there is a particular category to it. All industries do not need consent. So, small industries waste is taken by traders of small and medium enterprises. To reuse and recycle.

The recycling process for home base products

The ragpickers and traders come under small and medium enterprises. It's upon the scale of work they do. For example, there are 50 ragpickers in Goregaon. The material which is accumulated by these ragpickers is then taken to the mills by other traders who have enough capacity and money to load big trucks and send it to the Mills. Products include paper, cardboard, plastic, stainless steel scrap, copper and aluminum scrap.

What is the need?

The need for recycling is it saves a lot of new natural resources. Recycling helps in clearing the waste generated while the process of manufacturing takes place and finally when the product waste is discarded by the consumers after their use. 

The recycling industry also creates a lot of work/job opportunities and business opportunities for people who are uneducated or have little or some education. Recycling also helps to keep the city and the nation clean.

Recycling is helping climate change in many ways

It helps in reducing the carbon footprints, saving natural resources, and help in utilizing the available resource. The current need is more of educated people, environmentalists, solid and liquid waste management

Joining the recycling industries to make it more economical, more technology-driven and more organized with the sorting process.

The government has done its part with awareness campaigns, setting guidelines. The current need as consumers is we need to make wise choices, compulsory dry and wet segregation.

Making the process easy for the government and recyclers to save the natural resources and make it more Reduce Reuse and Recycle.

You need to rethink the choices we make. What you can do?

1. Refuse the new always
2. Reduce the consumption
3. Reuse what we have
4. Refurbish the old ones
5. Repurpose by creativity, Reinvent
6. RECYCLE

(The views expressed in the article are the author’s own. Let Me Breathe neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)