Recycling turns garbage into business, creates jobs
IF PROPERLY structured, the recycling of material and goods can help create green jobs.
Why is recycling so important? To make my point, let me try and answer this question with another question: why is breathing so important?
When you think about it, you will realise that both of these questions have fundamentally the same answer, that is TO SURVIVE. While the effects of not breathing will kill you instantly, the effects of not recycling will be felt by the coming generations. This is the reason why we need to think carefully about recycling in order to save our planet.
The pursuit of a green economy is increasingly becoming the top of the agenda for many companies. Staying green has become a shareholder’s concern and investment in any company these days requires proof that the firm is conscious of its environmental impact and that it has an action plan to restore its environment.
However, going green should not be the burden of large corporations only; individuals also need to take responsibility to ensure that the environment is kept green for the sustainable living of future generations.
It is my belief that each one of us can contribute towards the greening of the Earth and if structured properly, recycling (the decomposition or reclamation of used material) or upcycling (creating new products from used material) can help us create green jobs.
Almost anything that you can think of is recyclable these days; from the fruits and vegetables that we eat, to the electronic gadgets that we use to run our lives. It is clear that when you recycle you help the environment. Think about the following facts for a second and see the difference that each one of us can make by simply recycling as much as we can:
We need resources to produce everything we rely on to live a healthy life but we are slowly running out of these resources; water and ozone come to mind.
We are not able to replenish these resources at the same rate as we consume them.
Because of a lack of understanding of why we need to recycle, we fill our landfills with waste that can easily be reused. Landfills are ticking time bombs. Having all sorts of chemical products decomposing together makes for quite a mix in gases and vapour chemicals and this cannot be good for our environment.
The amount of wood and paper that South Africans throw away each year is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years.
Recycling an aluminium can can save enough energy to run a television set for three hours or light a 100-watt lightbulb for 20 hours.
A glass bottle can take up to 4 000 years to decompose.
I am sure these facts will spike your curiosity and get you going the recycling route.
But what can I recycle and how can I make a living out of it? Well, the truth is that you should recycle your rubbish whether or not you will make money from recycling.
Food
Spoilt food, waste food and the peels of the fruits and vegetables that we eat each day can help you make compost and composting is Mother Nature’s own recycling system. Compost can be sold to grow herbs, vegetables, flowers and trees.
You can start a compost manufacturing factory and sell your compost to the agricultural sector.
Bottles, plastic, cans and paper
Bottles and cans can be recycled to develop new plastic products, cans and bottles. Paper can be recycled into many other secondary products, such as toilet paper, kitchen towels and so on.
A lot of people are already doing this but you can be a distributor. You can think of innovative ways to move bottles, plastics, cans and paper to recycling centres.
How about a motorised scooter or a tricycle that will help the old ladies you see on the highways and by-ways pulling loads of recycling material to a recycling centre?
Metals
Almost everything we come across has some form of metal in it, from gold and silver, to bronze, aluminium, copper, mercury and so on.
We have all the metal we need around us but still we demand more. If we can recycle metals we will be able to meet the need for more.
Scrap metal recycling is a profitable business.
Electronics
Have you ever thought of what happens to all the electronic stuff we discard every day? We change models of electronic devices often to get the latest edition, including cellphones, computers, televisions, microwaves, fridges and the like.
If you think about it, we change batteries often. Instead of recycling this stuff we buy new ones and throw the rest into a bin.
This is a new industry but one that promises to grow as we move everything we do to electronic devices.
This is but the tip of the iceberg on the importance of recycling and what you can recycle. It is by no means the whole literature on recycling and possible opportunities to create green jobs.
Recycling is good for us, and good for our children’s future. As the proverb goes: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”