Healthy People 2020 Objective EH-12 Increase Recycling of Municipal Solid Waste - Research Paper Example

HEALTHY PEOPLE 2020 OBJECTIVE EH-12 Increase Recycling Of Municipal Solid Waste Table of Contents Introduction 3 CommunityIssue/Need 3 Project Planning 5 (Possible books: Community & Public Health Nursing: Promoting the Public’s Health 7 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: An Easy Household Guide 7 Projects with Recycling and Reusing) 7 Implementation of the Plan 8 Evaluation 11 Recommendations 12 Conclusion 13 References 14 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (2015). Municipal Solid Waste. Retrieved 1st July 2015 from http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/ 14 Introduction The goals of this study are to increase young children’s awareness of Environmental Health and how recycling and water/energy conservation can help preserve the world around them. According to Allender, Rector and Warner (2013), the environment is “all the physical, chemical and biological factors external to a person, and all the related behaviors.” The healthy environment contributes to increased longevity and better quality of human lives through prevention of control of injuries, diseases, and disabilities associated with interactions between humans and their surroundings. Incidentally, the increasing number of environmental factors has contributed to adverse health such as exposure to harmful substances in the soil, air, water, food, etc. (Scott, 2007). Human activities such as increasing development, activities and use of unsafe chemicals as well as man-made and natural disasters are responsible for increasing environmental pollution (Spilsbury, 2014). Environmental pollution has adverse health effects on everybody. Nurses have a role to play in promoting health environment through incorporating information of the environment in their activities. Recycling of waste and water and energy conservation should be introduced to school going children to increase awareness of environmental health. Community Issue/Need The increasing rate of waste generation calls for regular measures to reduce the generation and accumulation of such waste. Some of these measures include recycling and conserving water and energy. More than 3, 000 people die every year because of waterborne diseases. Also, 1 out of 6 Americans fall sick because of eating contaminated foods. According to Allender et al., (2013, 286), “Americans produced about 254 million tons of waste in 2013 and only 87 million tons (34.3) of the waste was recycled.” This was equivalent to 1.51 pounds recycled out of 4.40 pounds of individual waste per day. Through recycling Americans reduced a total of 186 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emission into the air in 2013. The environmental health objectives of Healthy People 2020 concentrate on six themes that highlight components of environmental health. These includes global environmental health, the quality of outdoor air, homes and communities, quality of surface and underground water quality and infrastructure and development. Water is very essential to human life because about 60% of human body is composed of water. By 2018, about 1.8 billion will people will be living in regions with water scarcity. The availability of safe drinking water is of major concern to the population. According to Allender et al. (2013), lack of safe drinking water is the major cause of diseases, hunger, and poverty across the globe. Over 90% of Americans are served by the public water system. There are various ways in which the public water systems are contaminated. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) protects public water systems while individuals are responsible for the private sources of water such as boreholes and private wells (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). There has been an increasing water contamination from pharmaceutical wastes, and 80% of public water is contaminated with some chemicals. The ecosystem is an integral part of human lives because there is no organism that can survive in isolation with the environment. The ecosystem provides a mechanism for regulating energy and water as well as recycling of waste (Scott, 2007). The goal of environmental health education is to ensure the human interaction with the environment is sustainable in the sense that it meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the capacity of the future generations to meet their needs. Various groups have different levels of exposure to environmental hazards. The children aged between five and six years have high vulnerability because of their stages of physical development, behavior and the environmental conditions at school and in their homes. The childhood activities such as hand-to-mouth adventure and plays expose children to various health hazards. The toxic substances on the floor and children playthings expose children to the unsafe environment than any other group (Scott, 2007). Therefore, creating awareness about environmental health among the children is very critical because it will improve the safety of the children and enable them offer their contribution towards energy and water conservation. Such awareness will contribute to the achievement of “HEALTHY PEOPLE 2020 OBJECTIVE EH-12 Increase recycling of municipal solid waste.” Project Planning OBJECTIVES CONTENT (Topics) TIME FRAME PRESENTER TEACHING METHODS Learner-oriented with one, measurable behavioral verb per objective. Outline of the content to be covered that will enable the learners to meet their objectives. State the time frame for each objective. List the faculty or content expert for each objective. Describe the teaching methods, strategies, materials and resources for each objective. teaching method, /strategy, materials, resources used for each objective At the completion of this session, the learners will: Be able to understand the meaning of recycling, various substances that can be recycled and the impact of waste substances on the environment. Understand the importance of conserving energy and water Understand the impact of their activities on the environment. Pretest Questioning about Environmental Health knowledge; Recycling of Municipal Waste Effects of waste on the environmental health Importance of water and energy conservation The impact of human impact activities on the environment? 5min Ask students questions on various issues such as: What is recycling of waste? What are the effects of waste on the environment? In what ways do you impact the environment? How do you conserve water and energy? 1.Students should understand various methods of recycling waste such as 3 R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) They should understand methods of conserving water and energy. 2. The students will be able to identify at least one way to preserve water and energy and should distinguish between clean water from dirty water. 3. Students will be able to decide if an item should be donated, recycled or dumped. 1. students should discuss how to recycling various materials Discuss various methods of energy and water conservation Discuss ways that they can recycle at home and school. 2. Discuss how constant use of running water can lead to water shortages and how leaving lights on can lead to high uses of electricity. 3. Review previous topics and utilize a worksheet where the students will determine if they items should go into a trash can or a recycle container. Also discuss items that they can donate instead of throwing away. 5 minutes 5 minutes 10 minutes Read books, journals and from the internet about recycling and then discuss ways that they can recycle. (Possible books: Community & Public Health Nursing: Promoting the Public’s Health Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: An Easy Household Guide Projects with Recycling and Reusing) Students will fill out and color a worksheet with the items that can either be thrown away or recycled. The children will gather various items and group according to whether they can be disposed, recycled or re-used. Post Test 3 minutes Re-ask the pre-test questions and see if the students are now able to answer easily the questions we started the lesson with. Implementation of the Plan Recycling involves recovery of valuable resources such as plastic, glass, paper and metals from the waste for use in producing new items to reduce a number of waste substances dumped into the environment and reduced acquisition of raw materials (Allender et al., 2013). Water and energy conservation involves conscious measures undertaken to ensure controlled use and avoid unnecessary waste of these resources such as by switching off power or water when not in use, using energy efficient gadgets, etc. Health nurses should be aware of the sources of environmental health hazards and relevant control measures to ensure the target population is adequately protected (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). Also, they must be aware of the existing legislations that promotes health environment and advocate the implementation of the same. Nurses can provide environmental health education to the families to ensure reduction of health hazards in the environment. OHN can ensure environmental health regulations are implemented while school nurses can monitor the indoor air quality at school setting to ensure a safe environment for the students (Allender et al., 2013). Furthermore, nurses should influence policy decisions to ensure environmental health education is taught at school to increase children awareness about environmental health. They should help the society to understand the causes of environmental hazards, waste that can be recycled, dumped or donated and methods of preventing harmful effects on the environment. Furthermore, they should educate the community on the consequences of the hazardous environment on human health. Nurses are charged with the duty of promoting the health of all people, and they are in close contact with people from all walks of life. Also, nurses have the integrity and capacity to enable them offer scientific information about the environment and the health issues associated with exposure to toxic substances. The United States has more than three million registered nurses (Scott, 2007). This implies that nurses have adequate capacity to reach nearly everyone in the United States and influence the public policies on environmental health, water and energy conservation. The children aged between five and six years are in the early days of their schools. Therefore, introducing information on health environment and conservation of water and energy to such children at that age is crucial in increasing awareness about the surroundings and how it can affect their lives. Waste categorization and percentage contribution. Source; (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). Percentage of recycled waste. Source; (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). Evaluation The evaluation of the project involves ensuring the outcome achieves the set goals. To reduce the waste disposal by increasing recycling of waste by 36.5% the nurses must educate the community on various approaches to recycling, disposal and reuse of the waste (Spilsbury, 2014). The stakeholders can assess the number items produced from recycled waste as one of the measures of achievement of goals. The more the community engages in recycling and reuse of waste materials the less trash is available for dumping. Also, nurses should introduce education programs for the persons with children to evaluate the triggers of allergic illness such as asthma. Through these programs, they should evaluate the triggers of such conditions and match with the emergency cases reported in the hospitals (Spilsbury, 2014). Over time, nurses can compare the results to establish changes in the number of cases reported since the introduction of the education programs. Also, the school nurses can evaluate the number of children who miss the school days as a result of environmental related illnesses since the introduction of education programs on environmental health. It is important to examine the people’s concern about environmental safety by examining the type of water they drink (Spilsbury, 2014). Do they take bottled water as a precaution for health safety against dirty drinking water? Regarding the conservation of water the stakeholders can examine how people use the water. If they leave the water running for long time, it is could be an indicator that they are not conserving the water. Also, to establish conservation of energy one can evaluate the nature of electric gadgets in use and whether people leave power on when the machines are not attended. Recommendations I would recommend the stakeholders to introduce environmental health programs in the education system to ensure children are conscious of their environment at a tender age. Also, they should ensure they evaluate the success of these programs effectively to ensure they are achieving their objectives. Furthermore, they should come up with various means through which people can recycle waste easily and profitably. There should be regulations on energy and water conservation and penalties for those who violate those regulations. As well as incentives for those who contribute to environmental conservation Conclusion This project will promote awareness among the children aged 5 to 6 years about various environmental health concerns. It will encourage recycling of waste and conservation of water and energy. The registered nurses have close contacts with people from all walks of lives hence they are in a better position to create awareness among the public both in schools, workplaces and at homes to reach the parents who have children. Increasing awareness among the children is crucial for environmental protection and improvement of people’s health. However, the stakeholders should conduct an evaluation to ensure the outcome of the project meets the targets by the HEALTHY PEOPLE 2020 OBJECTIVE EH-12 Increase recycling of municipal solid waste. References Allender, J., Rector, C., & Warner, K. (2013). Community & Public Health Nursing: Promoting the Public’s Health. Pp. 286-297. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Scott, N. (2007). Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: An Easy Household Guide. Chelsea Green Publishing Spilsbury, L. (2014). Projects with Recycling and Reusing. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (2015). Municipal Solid Waste. Retrieved 1st July 2015 from http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/ Read More