Plastic Waste Management

Waste management is the need of the hour and at this alarming stage
each one of us will have to join hands to curb this problem in order to
keep our environment healthy and safe for our future generations.
Problem with our system is that the total amount of waste produced is
not disposed properly rather thrown out in open to maculate our
environment. Waste present today can be divided into several categories
but two major categories are biodegradable and non-biodegradable
waste. Biodegradable waste decompose directly and do not pose a risk to
our environment but non-biodegradable waste pose a great risk to our
environment as they do not decompose and major constituent over
which our concern lies is Plastic. Plastic is found in every item which we
buy from market today and the amount of plastic today produced is not
disposed. 60 major cities of India produce more than 15000 tonnes of
plastic waste every day (TOI report of 2015) and most of this waste
directly enters our Oceans. Plastic waste is like a ticking bomb which
can explode at any time if not given proper emphasis.
Waste management
Waste management has already started in many of the major cities of the
world and is being carried out with proper disposal of waste. In India
waste management is being applied to most of the urban cities but due to
high quantity and very high population these methods are not that
efficient. In order to bring out change I would like to take a small step
forward to pave a way for proper plastic waste management in our
country.
Starting from a small town or a city we can expand, but we first we have
to take the initiative of starting. To begin we have to first gather all the
assets required to manage our waste and to properly dispose/recycle it,

as plastic waste is non-biodegradable we can neither dump it, incinerate

nor through it in the ocean, so we will have to recycle it properly. There
are many ways nowadays in which we can recycle plastic and can make
this waste useful for the society thus reducing the carbon emissions and
carbon footprint of our nation.
Waste collection
Waste collection has to done in an organized manner to properly recycle
it. Different teams have to be identified to collect plastic waste from the
areas. Waste collection from residential areas, shops, hotels,
schools/colleges and any other similar institution can be done by one
team and waste from offices, industries/factories and hospitals by
another team.
1. Waste from offices and factories: Plastic waste from such
institutions can be easily collected. All type of plastic waste from
these places can be collected by automated trucks. Waste can be
collected in large bins at these places and proper instruction can be
given to these institutions for dumping only plastic waste in these
bins. By this method only separated plastic waste will be collected
and can easily be processed. After getting recognition from
government we can give out certifications to these institutions as
non plastic littering institutions and can award the best
organization in terms of waste management and disposal. We can
also charge these institutions a minimal amount in order to dispose
the waste and properly recycle it.
2. Household waste: To collect waste from houses manual labor has
to be employed but first we will have to educate people not to mix
any other waste with the plastic waste. Different methods can be
adopted to make people aware and give them proper guidelines for
separating waste. We can give money to people depending upon

the amount of waste given by them, if a person gives 1kg of plastic

waste we can give him Rs 1 (this cost can further be increased
depending upon the profit from the waste collected). In this way
people will separate waste properly and this will reduce our work.
Waste collectors
To collect waste we will have to employ people and in our country
nobody wants to clean others waste, so finding people for this job is a
tricky task. To do so we need to lure people by giving them better
benefits, good salaries, life security and respect is all what a man needs
in his whole life and by giving people what they need we can lure many
people for this job. I plan to give people a descent salary, proper dress,
gloves and life cover. We can also give awards to people for their
distinguished services.
Recycling of waste
After doing this tedious job of waste collection comes the time to
recycle it. Plastic can be recycled and can be utilized for different works.
Plastic can be recycled in a recycling plant and after recycling it can be
used to make any product. Our aim is to make this waste useful and
recycle plastic for the betterment of society. There are numerous options
for the recycling of plastic. It can also be used to produce energy.
A plastic recycling plant can be set up which will give us the material
for the production of various useful products. We can make use of this
waste to make substitute for wood. Wood is used extensively in
construction and many trees are cut regularly, so to stop this we can first
employ this waste to make substitute for wooden shuttering. This can
further be implemented to make more useful efforts after proper testing
and implementation.

This is a very small step in conserving our environment if this comes

into effect as planned and visualized then we will be able to reduce our
dependence on natural resources and conserve our environment for a
better tomorrow.