Education

Societies around the world are centered on the belief that what you own and how much of it defines who you are.  We buy items without thought for where they will eventually end up, leading to a worldwide garbage crisis. “Each day the U.S. throws away [43,000 tons of food] and enough trash to fill 63,000 garbage trucks”.  While the ultimate goal would be to reduce our overall consumption of “stuff”, managing our waste in a more sustainable manner is a movement in the right direction. Recycling still uses energy, but it is a better alternative than throwing all of our waste into landfills or incinerators.  “Recycling an aluminum soda can saves 96% of the energy used to make a can from ore, and produces 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution.” To some degree humans will always produce and consume goods making it necessary for cities worldwide to come up with innovative ideas to deal with our waste now and in the future to insure that our planet doesn’t become overrun with garbage.

Inspiration

Not all cities will have the same resources available to them to more efficiently manage their waste, but in spite of their individual challenges these cities have found a way to successfully cope with the waste they generate and illustrate the diverse ways in which we can utilize the waste we produce.

Copenhagen, Denmark puts only 3% of waste into its landfills

http://sustainablecities.dk/en/city-projects/cases/copenhagen-waste-to-energy-plants

Dhaka, Bangladesh’s Waste Concern program is one of the world’s most successful organic waste composting programs. http://www.schwabfound.org/sf/SocialEntrepreneurs/Profiles/index.htm?sname=129201&sorganization=0&sarea=0&ssector=0&stype=0 

Denver community Waste resources

We can all do our part to dispose of our waste responsibly with numerous alternatives we can turn to in order to decrease our individual waste, such as recycling or composting.

Interested in recycling, but don’t know how to get started? The following links will explain in detail the simple steps you need to follow to take advantage of Denver’s recycling programs.

http://www.eco-officiency.com/resources_co_recycling.html

http://www.denvergov.org/recapp/DenverRecyclesHome/tabid/425351/Default.aspx

Denver’s first composting pilot program.

http://www.denvergov.com/recoth/CompostPilotProgram/tabid/431111/Default.aspx