Our small step towards this

Our bit of step towards this......

Have you ever thought what do we do with the non-biodegradable materials and what we ought to? Let us try to understand What is Non-Biodegradable material? Anything that cannot be decomposed by micro-organisms is described as non- biodegradable. And what is the fate of this non-biodegradable waste? Its very hazardous and affects each and every life form possible on this planet Earth in an undesirable way.

 This justifies the reason for the recycling of plastic, a non-biodegradable waste which you, me and everyone in this world in one way or the other. Isn't it true that we want to get rid of each of everything that troubles us ranging from itching to mess in our room.So, why not plastic. We may not be able to realize the hazardous affects of plastic today but in coming years,  this will only become so dangerous to our lives that we won't be able to correct our this mistake. So, why not to avoid such a situation.Why not to do something until its too late.Now, let me tell me acquaint you with with a very good quality our teammates: they are very inquisitive. Once, while working with this project only our team member observed that the garbage picker who comes to the houses puts all the collected garbage with his "own hands" in a single big rag only and we people feel so shameful to throw such garbage with our hands in dustbin. Isn't. After all they are also human Beings and if they can do it why can't we. Let me tell you one thing: We say him "kudewala" but actually we are the ones who throw garbage and make our country dirty and make lose its beauty and they are the ones who clean our country. So, they are not "Kudewala" instead in a true sense we are the ones. They are the saviors of the elegance of our country. When asked what he does with all that garbage, he said that in a way it's his source of income. Quite surprising... Something which is of complete wastage and is worthless for us is a source of income for someone..Isn't it. 
We talked to the garbage picker who comes to our school regarding what he does and how he manages everything. We saw that he was mixing all the garbage, be it plastic or vegetable peel. But later on he told us that he will segregate the waste later on .

when he can do it then why can't we all??

 Segregating the waste then and there will be quite difficult task for him. This same task we carried with the garbage picker who comes to our homes. But the slight difference we found in two cases is that the one who comes to the home segregates the waste then and there.    

Our talk to the the garbage picker

As shown in the above picture he has two bags one for plastic and other for remaining waste.

He told that he actually segregates the various kind of waste and then he sells some of them and earns. So. a thought came to our mind that why not do this step of segregation at grass root level only??? Why not we ourselves segregate our own waste??? Don't you feel that its our duty to do it?? In our school, we actually have 2 kinds of dustbins: Biodegradable which is colored green and Non-Biodegradable which is colored blue. In spite of having 2 different containers we were not making proper usage of it. Its just like when you have a resource and you don't make proper use of it. We observed, to be very honest, that we were not utilizing them as per their usage. We extended our observations to other classes as well. We even tried to find out how these bins were used in our labs and other rooms of the school.

Instead of two dustbins, everything was dumped
in a single one. 

If it has to be done in this way only, then
what's the difference between the two???

Blue Dustbin for Non- Biodegradable waste

Green Dustbin for biodegradable waste

 And then our teacher, Manju ma'am opened our eyes. She discussed the problem in the class and discussed the utility of these containers.And what we noticed was that all students were aware about the proper usage of the two bins but still we were not following. Its like we have laws but we don't abide by them. So, its whose mistake??

In Chemistry Lab....

 What used to be in class 9-F....

Then, we talked to our supervisory head about the proper usage of the bins. We told about our initiative. Hearing all this, she was very happy and liked it. She even appreciated us for our work.  She decided to write a notice to make all the students aware of the proper usage of bins and motivated all to take their small steps to save our planet. After all, School is a place where we learn so many things and is the best place wherein we can take this initiative. 

Circular which was announced in different sections of IX and X standards.

Our talk with supervisory head

This is what we tried to ensure.

Green for Biodegradable!!!!

 Then, we realized the need of hour and started with the work.  We made sure that each and everyone in the class will stand through his responsibility. Navya, from our class took the initiative happily to ensure that we all do it. Because if we will do at grass root level only then, it will not only benefit the garbage picker but also we too. After all we all our citizens of the same country and we ought to do a bit of it because my friends, remember that every bit counts. We even made placards to spread awareness about the issue starting with our class only.

Then we extended this procedure to our homes wherein we started using two containers for waste. Let me tell you one of the secret of various foreign countries... These countries look so beautiful and i may say alluring because these are clean and  a major role is made by having different containers for different uses that help them to live in such a pleasing environment. If they can do it then why can't Indians, we,the citizens of the country. So, let us join our hands to achieve it.   

This is what we observed after few days....

Our observations in other classes as well.

proper usage of bins is helpful to all. So, let us do it.

Take initiative to make people aware of their duty...

Even the sweepers do in this way, then why can't we??

We have to take care about this in cleaning duty held in our school as well.

Another point we realized during this project was that Nowadays plastic has becoming so important that every other thing contains plastic. But this plastic is very harmful. So we need to get rid of it and at the same time it has become very important to use in our lives. So, what to do? Well, one thing we can do is to have a substitute for plastic and polythene bags. For the polythene bags we can use paper bags or jute bags. But for the plastic used in appliances, it is difficult to have a substitute for it or if we have it the it won't be efficient. Do we have any other solution to it? The answer is : YES. We can use biodegradable plastic. Isn' it? It won't harm our environment as well as have the efficiency to be used replacing non-biodegradable plastic.

    

PLASTIC IN LANDFILLS

DUMPING PLASTIC IN LANDFILLS 

Each year, 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. This averages to about 1 million bags per minute.

When consumers mindlessly accept plastic bags, use them for only a minute, then toss them away without a thought…this poses a tremendous environmental problem!

 Huge amount of plastic is being dumped into landfills. Plastic being non- biodegradable poses a huge threat to environment and animals.

 Landfill Waste - Indiscriminate dumping of plastic waste on land makes the land infertile due to its barrier properties where it may take up to 1,000 years to decompose, and potentially leak pollutants into the soil and water. Lead and Cadmium pigments, commonly used in LDPE, HDPE and PP as additives are toxic and are known to leach out. Garbage mixed with plastics interferes in waste processing facilities and also cause problems in landfill operations. 

 Clogged Waterways — Plastic bags clog drains and waterways, threatening urban environments and creating severe safety hazards. Drainage systems blocked by plastic bags have been identified as a major cause of flooding in countries like India and Bangladesh during monsoon season. Not only do floods destroy homes, derail trains, delay traffic, and cause mudslides, but they also create breeding grounds for water born diseases, malaria, and dengue fever.

Animal Death- More than 1 million birds and animals die each year from plastic entanglement. Large land animals like cows and camels also die from ingesting plastic bags. The bags coat their stomachs and they die of starvation because food can no longer be absorbed and digested.

stop using plastic bags

Plastic is one of the major elements that constitute the backyard trash.
Typical household trash burned consists of items that would typically be sent to a landfill or recycled. This includes

• • Paper.
  • Cardboard.
  • Food scraps.
  • Plastics.
  • Yard trimmings.
  • Leaves. Now one of the most important part of this project is the hazards caused by burning plastic. 

In the past, the trash burned by residents, especially those in rural areas, consisted mainly of paper and wood. The makeup of trash has changed within the past 50 years and now includes coated paper, plastics, and other materials manufactured by humans. Hence, it is necessary to make people aware about the hazards caused by burning plastic. Because when people will be aware of it, then only they will stop dumping their plastic bags in their bins and will stop burning it. Now, the question is what makes plastic bags so hazardous. The answer lies in chemical composition of plastic and further its physical and chemical properties. So, lets take a trip to the world of plastics......
ok, now the foremost important characteristic of plastic is that it is made up of polymers?? Now, what are polymers? A polymer is a molecule whose structure is composed of multiple repeating units, from which originates a characteristic of high relative molecular mass and attendant properties...

Now, let us see what this picture depicts???
A plastic item with thirty years of exposure to heat and cold, brake fluid, and sunlight. Notice the discoloration, swelling, and crazing of the material. Crazing looks like a network of fine cracks on the surface of a material, for example in a glaze layer. Brake fluid is a type of hydraulic fluid used in hydraulic brake and hydraulic clutch applications in automobiles, motorcycles, light trucks, and some bicycles. It is used to transfer force into pressure, and to amplify braking force. 

MAJOR PLASTICS

                             

                            

HOW THE RECYCLING OCCURS

• The recyclables can be collected from individual homes or from collection points such as tips, schools and supermarkets. After transport to the recycling plant, plastics are hand sorted according to their recycling code. Some materials recovery facilities can mechanically sort different plastic codes. Each plastic type is processed separately. 

• The plastic is sliced into flakes and the flakes go through a washing process.

• The clean plastic flakes are melted together, extruded through small holes, and chopped into pellets. 

• The bags of recycled plastic pellets are taken to factories where they are melted and made into new products.

• In the case of soft drink bottles the recycled pellets are combined with virgin material fresh from petroleum. These are then melted and moulded into preforms. 

• The bottles are blown into another mould to form the full size bottle this is often done at the bottling plant where they are filled and sealed. 

• Once consumed they are delivered back to the recycling plant after household recycling

Recycling Of Plastics Animation

PROBLEMS WITH RECYCLING PLASTICS

 Plastics are much more complicated to recycle than other materials like paper, metal, and glass, in large part because of the many thousands of different types of plastics on the market. for plastics recycling to work, manufacturers must be able to cost-effectively collect and sort plastics for these markets. For communities to create recycling system to recycleevry possible type of plastic packaging that exists now (and will be created into the future), it is not only daunting, expensive, and inefficient, it places all the responsiblity and cost on the costumer.

For many years, communities and recyclers have struggled to create recycling programs for plastics with little success because of these issues:

• Collection is time-intensive, so expensive 

• Sorting of mixed plastic waste is difficult – contamination is inevitable.

•  Removing labels, print, all but impossible at 100% success rate 

• Contamination of any sort compromises re-use in “hi-tech” applications (a carbonated water bottle is a pressure vessel – a failure is unacceptable to the supermarkets that sell them)  

• PET and PVC have many problems with cross contamination as the two polymers appear very similar to the naked eye and share the same specific gravity so cannot be separated by conventional float-sink techniques used in the plastic recycling industry. 

•  The correct separation of plastics is extremely important. Just one PVC bottle in a batch of 10,000 PET bottles can ruin the entire melt! 

• Reclaiming the energy stored in the polymers can be done through incineration, but this can cause environmental damage by release of toxic gases into the atmosphere.