“Know your waste” The most critical step towards better waste management
“Sorting (waste) is too complicated” most people say.
“Know your waste” is about identifying your waste type in your daily lives or in your operation unit. Why do we need to know our waste? First and foremost, knowing what kind of waste you generate allows you to plan ahead your choice of consumption so that you can prevent generating more in the first place. Secondly, knowing your waste enables you to find a more environmentally-friendly way to manage it. Last but not least, it helps you communicate to people in your communities and/organizations in the same direction.
Based on our research of common and international best practices on waste segregation, GEPP has defined our ‘7-waste types as depicted in the graphics below. By the order of segregation, they are:
- Food waste/Organic Waste — Key to sort food waste is to make sure that nothing else, especially chemical materials, goes into it as it will be fed back into the ecosystem. Food waste can be composted as fertilizer or used as animal feed.
- Bio-Hazardous — any materials contaminated with body fluids such as face mask, napkin, bandaids.
- Hazardous — old batteries, broken light bulbs, anything that has potential harmful chemicals
- Electronics — All electronic devices such as remote control, water pump, microwave, charger etc. This type of waste must be kept in a dry place because it can create ignition; in some cases, can be sold as a sparepart before going to the recycling process.
- Recyclables — recyclable materials include paper, plastic, glass, metal. It must be kept dry and clean so that it can be recycled.
- Waste-to-energy — waste-to-energy or Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF) materials include all multilayer products, bioplastic packaging, coated paper, or plastic rejected in the recycle stream.
- Dirty waste — anything that does not fit into the above 6 types is disposed of through either incineration with or without energy recovery or landfill. This type includes dirty but not contaminated waste such as tea bag, paper-based food packaging that is stained with oil.
With these tips, you can go to your daily waste and try to categorize it then build a common understanding with your family members and/or with your colleagues at the office. If you wish to obtain our waste segregation signages for your premises, please feel free to contact us at: geppthailand@gmail.com, we will be more than happy to share the file with you, it’s free!.
Dome Boonyanurak
CMO and Co-founder GEPP Sa-ard co.,Ltd
