Taking Care of Rubbish

After the elections, you can just imagine the tons of garbage from campaign posters and materials that should be properly disposed off. While political leaders, candidates, and their supporters and followers might have already initiated cleaning-up, knowledge about garbage and garbage disposal is not only about post-election because it’s always a daily hassle in our country. Garbage disposal and knowledge and strategies about the same should be addressed, not just to homemakers, but also to the whole family, including and more importantly, to the children.

Garbage disposal

Garbage disposal is a convenient method for reduction of the amount of garbage in daily living. Improper and unintelligent disposal of garbage can lead to clogs, jams, blockages, odors, flooding, garbage-borne diseases, unsanitary water supply, contaminated food supply, and huge plumbing bills. With our concerted ‘little care’ and maintenance of our garbage, we can contribute ‘big’ in saving our planet.

Things you should watch for

1. Fish and chicken bones cannot be broken into small pieces for them to pass through the drain. They can end clogging up the kitchen sink.

2. Other materials that can clog the drain are: banana or fruit peels, corn husks, papers, egg shells, plastic containers, plastic bags, and other non-biodegradable materials or those that cannot be reduced to small pieces even by using water. Water does not pass through them and thus they remain as they are even if you put them inside the drain. You might not notice but there are small things that can clog the drain, like bottle caps, small baby and ice cream spoons, and strands of hair in the bathroom drain.

3. The grease from cooking oil inside the pan has the tendency to solidify and clog the kitchen sink and the entire drain when thrown in the sink. Always run plenty of water to fully drain the oil into the sewer. Most blockages are caused from using less water.

What goes inside the bin?

This is not new to anybody who has been made aware of every community’s program for waste management. Learn to segregate. Know what is ‘nabubulok’ or biodegradable and those that are non-biodegradable or ‘hindi nabubulok’. Both these items can go inside the bin as long as you are sensitive-enough to separate them in separate containers. Never mind if the garbage collector mixes up everything inside his dump truck. It’s not your concern. As long as you do your share and you do it all the time, people will notice it.

Remember the 3Rs in waste management: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Let’s take care of our garbage. Let’s show this good example to our children.