Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you must have noticed that climate change has been affecting our planet for quite some time now. Global warming is causing many problems worldwide and slowly yet effectively changing life as we know it.
Some countries are more affected than others, which is why climate change in South Africa is more spoken of than, for example, climate change in certain European countries. However, this doesn’t mean that only one part of the population should fight climate change while the rest of us do nothing.
Speaking of keeping climate change under control in the best way we can, we need to start small. One of those steps is adopting the zero waste policy as soon as possible. In this text, we’ll go through the most important reasons for doing so and discuss how it can help our planet on the global level.
How Waste Contributes to Climate Change
To get straight to the point, let’s take a look at what happens with the average content of your waste bin once you throw it out. As you know, there are organic products that are biodegradable and inorganic ones that are not.
- Organic waste — The decomposition process of organic waste emits carbon dioxide and methane gas. These two gasses are known as greenhouse gases that directly contribute to climate change and global warming.
- Inorganic waste — When it comes to inorganic waste, it does not affect climate change after you throw it away — it does it much earlier during the manufacturing process. Namely, to produce these items, companies use natural resources and create emission gasses that pollute the environment.
With these processes happening every day, chances are that climate change will transform our planet sooner than we expect.
What Is Our Role in Climate Change?
A great number of people don’t even realize how the waste they make affects climate change and our lives on this planet. Furthermore, most of them believe that the amount of waste thrown out by a single household is not a big deal as that waste alone won’t make much of a change.
However, take a moment to pause for a second and just imagine how much waste one bigger city produces on a daily basis. Hopefully, this will make you understand that you, together with other people who think alike, create mountains of trash every day and contribute to climate change that’s affecting every living creature on earth.
Why Should You Adopt and Promote The Zero Waste Principle?
If you read this article from the beginning, you’ve come to know how our daily actions contribute to climate change. Now when you are informed about it, we can conclude that a global change starts on an individual level.
If you start thinking about what you do with the waste and take vital steps in following the zero waste policy, such as reusing what you can or recycling particular items, you might not immediately see an environmental change. However, by observing what you’re doing, other people might also decide it’s time to change their habits and spare the planet of so much rubbish.
This way, by spreading awareness step by step, we will hopefully reach a point when the zero waste policy will be included in all countries’ regulations as obligatory. That would help save the planet and ensure there’s a future younger generations can look forward to.
