Are all waste products simply resources that have not been used yet - Essay Example

At a holistic level, the approach to managing waste and all the resources that are part of that waste actually contribute towards the achievement of any development. The entire new concept of recycling focuses on the fact that somebody’s waste can be another person’s treasure. Now not in the literal sense, but recycling reproduces used materials into useful products that greatly reduces the need of natural resources to be used. The popularity of recycling as the new approach to waste management perhaps quite well answer the question that almost all waste products are resources in the affirmative.

Waste is becoming an increasingly difficult problem to handle. In China alone, municipal solid waste generation increased from a huge 31.3 million tons in the year 1980 to a devastatingly huge number of 113.0 million tons in 1998 (Wang & Nie, 2001). The management of municipal waste is a key concern if environmental protection is a priority for the increased amount of urban construction and overall development has vastly increased the amount of waste. One stops to wonder why the entire focus of waste disposal has shifted from managing it in a way that it doesn’t take up much space to recycling (Weitz, et al., 2002) which not to forget is an expensive procedure and has given rise to an extremely significant new industry (Wang & Nie, 2001).

Solid waste management basically deals with the use of resources and the end of life deposition of materials. Managing waste often requires difficult decision involving the collection, recycling, transportation and finally the disposal of the waste so as to have minimal environmental attack and to save costs as well (Weitz, et al., 2002). The entire logic behind this shift is perhaps rested in the fact that several things that are used and usually thrown away can be brought to use again with the help of recycling.

Recycling at several times is thought to be a silly notion by many but it is truly not. With the help of a little imagination recycling can be extremely useful. What is more important is the fact that recycling products doesn’t always have to be an extremely complicated process. Looking at several household items, news papers and magazines that old and become useless can be used to donate to a hospital where patients are all tied up and need an activity. Recycling doesn’t always have to be the difficult technological process but giving thongs away in charity is also a form of recycling.

Goods and items that one doesn’t need any more can be of great use to a charitable organization supporting the poor and needy. In fact the simple act of using rechargeable batteries is an example of reusing things that would have otherwise contributed to waste. Recycling not only saves time and cost but also the further depletion of the world’s fast running out natural resources. Recycling doesn’t only save and generate valuable resources but has a wide array of benefits associated with the environment and the society in general (Imperial London College, 2013).

An extremely interesting fact that has come to notice is that even waste is categorized into different types as per its respective recycle value. The major materials that are recovered from the Municipal Solid Waste are the ones