XVIII Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся
Старт в науке
CONDITIONS OF THE DISPOSAL OF SEPARATE GARBAGE COLLECTION IN AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT
Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя I степени
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INTRIDUCTION
Relevance. Nowadays the relevance of separate garbage collection causes a lot of discussion. Greenpeace scientists estimated that on average each person throws out about 200 kg of garbage per year. After learning this fact from posts of environmental bloggers (#экошажки) I became eager to know where all this garbage is removed to and how it is disposed.
From Anna Voityukova’s blog I found out that the problem of garbage removal and its disposal is getting more and more serious in our country. Most often garbage is just removed to city dumps where it is either burnt or left to rot. Both of these methods of garbage disposal are very harmful to the environment. Process of garbage disposal depends on the possibilities of different regions in our country. In some regions the quantity of dumps is growing each year, while in other regions there are incinerators.
It’s not a secret that none of these methods is safe for humans as rotting garbage pollutes not only large areas of ground but also groundwater and reservoirs located near such dumps. In the process of incineration harmful substances release into the air which worsen its quality. So both methods of garbage disposal mentioned above are outdated and do not include the process of recycling. Besides, from environmental bloggers I found out that the amount of garbage disposed can be reduced many times if the recycling process is implemented.
At the family council we decided to experiment to adhere to the concept of separate garbage collection. And the pressing question arose. Where should we dispose the separately collected garbage? Are there conditions for the implementation of separate garbage collection in our city? Simultaneously the idea of writing a research work on the topic of “Conditions of the disposal of separate garbage collection in an urban environment” came to my mind.
The purposeof the studyis to find out and consider conditions of separate garbage collection implementation in our city.
According to the purpose of the study the following tasks were set:
To understand the mechanism of garbage disposal in our city of Ufa;
To study the conditions for implementation and disposal of garbage collected separately in the city;
To learn how garbage may be reused;
To dispose household garbage separately for recycling during the period of the research;
To conduct the questionnaire on the subject of awareness of ways of separate garbage collection and points for disposal of sorted garbage among acquaintances, friends and classmates.
Practical value:Conducting educational activities on this issue based on the results of the experiment on separate garbage collection and speaking at a scientific school conference.
Hypothesis:One cansignificantly reduce the amount of the garbage thrown out by sorting it for recycling.
Relevance: Increasing volumes of household garbage is one of the most important ecological, social and economical problems of our city.Disposal of the solid domestic waste in the dump is the simplest and cheapest method to handle garbage. However, the existing system of handling of garbage is not effective as the current mechanism of collection, removing and disposal of household garbage exhausted the possibilities and requires updating.
CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE SURVEY
Mechanism of garbage disposal in an urban environment
The problem of garbage disposal is particularly acute in Russia. According to statics data only 4% of garbage is recycled. Most of the garbage is sent to a common container and its further sorting is difficult or is impossible at all. Then garbage goes to landfills where it pollutes the environment which in its turn causes harm for humans. Statistics say that in 2018 the total area of dumps was about 5 million hectares. According to forecasts by 2026 the area of landfills will reach 8 million of hectares.
Active growth of cities and the quantity of city residents is the main cause of garbage dumps. People buy a huge amount of goods. As a result more garbage is generated. City residents’ culture of consumption is poorly developed. Not many people give importance to purchases and soon part of the goods bought goes to the garbage cans. This is one of the factors of garbage accumulation.
Thus, we claim that humans themselves produce a lot of garbage. There are long-term consumer products – cars, TV sets, mobiles, computers, tablets, refrigerators, bicycles and so on. And there are those that serve from one to five years. These are shoes, clothes, home textiles, household items. But there are such goods that are used for a week, a month or even one day only. These are lamp-bulbs, batteries, toothpaste tubes and so on. All these things go to garbage container sooner or later.
There is an organization called Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor). It monitors the process of garbage disposal and controls its removal to the landfills. But in practice there is no proper control. Household garbage containing heavy metals is classified as non-hazardous.Though, in fact the composition of our dumps is a complex of various chemical compounds. One can find different metals there such as iron, copper, lead, aluminum. Some of them are dangerous for health of humans and other living beings. It is known what kind of harm garbage cause to environment and human health. It starts to release toxic substances that enter rivers and groundwater. Disposed to landfills many chemical compounds in the garbage, such as polyethylene, decompose extremely slowly and release toxic substances of dioxins in the process of incineration. Fluorescent lamps, mercury thermometers and expired medicines fall into garbage containers. Plastic containers from household cleaning products, paint products, batteries – all these things should be disposed by special process, but in reality they are removed to dumps as low-toxic garbage.
In the course of my study I found out that garbage with toxic chemicals should be removed to separate places for destruction. The level of damage to the ecology depends on the duration of decomposition of materials. It’s not a secret that organic garbage decomposes the fastest. It takes 30 days average. Shoes decompose during about 10 years. Paper decomposes during the period from 1 to 4 months. And construction rubbish decomposes for centuries. Foil and electric batteries decompose for about 100 years. The decomposition period of rubber is up to 150 years, the one of plastic is from 180 to 200 years. And it takes up to 500 years for one aluminum can to decompose! That is the greatest damage for environment is caused by foil, batteries, rubber, plastic and aluminum.
In the process of decomposing or incinerating garbage produces terrible smell polluting the air of nearby cities and villages. In such cases the requirements of the federal law "On the Protection of Atmospheric Air" are violated. Based on all mentioned above we proved that removal of garbage to landfills is environmentally wrong. Most of household garbage can be recycled and reused.
Garbage can be given a second life. There are different ways of disposal of household garbage:
-Composting;
-Incinerating;
-Dumping.
1.2. Reuse and recycling
Incinerating and dumping is used most often for household garbage disposal in our country.
The problem of huge accumulation of garbage can be solved in two ways.
The first way is to reduce the consumption of goods and thereby reduce the production of garbage. The second way is to properly dispose and recycle garbage. And integrated approach implemented will bring the results faster.
Much household garbage is a great cheap raw material for some kinds of production that has long been used in Europe. For example, plastic. It is known that some world-famous companies make clothes from recycled materials. For example well-known Adidas company created running shoes made of plastic.
There are collection points for recycling in many supermarkets. If the item is in a good condition it can be sold.
The reuse of materials has several advantages:
1) Reuse is cheaper than incineration;
2) It leads to reduction of consumption of primary raw materials;
3) It leads to reduction of amount of garbage;
4) It improves the work of enterprises as there is no need to spend time and money for transportation of bulky primary raw materials (wood, for example).
Paper, plastic, glass and metal are recycled abroad. But first garbage is sorted. This practice is unusual for residents of our city. All garbage goes to containers unsorted. It makes difficult further sorting and recycling of household garbage. There are special containers for each type of material abroad. Recycled materials are reused.
It is necessary to install more garbage cans for sorting waste in the yards of our city. Raising awareness of the population is very important. A lot of work should be done in this field. Many people just don’t think about the damage that garbage does to the planet and to their own health. Technological progress brought new materials that require special disposal and recycling. Proper disposal will help to avoid pollution of our planet. The environmental problem of garbage is a global challenge for ecologists all over the world. In collaboration with ecologists scientists are working over technologies that will help decompose plastic without any harm to the environment.
High-quality materials can be obtained from plastic and paper for reuse. Food garbage can be used to make food for livestock and fertilizers for plants.
Rubber is crushed into crumbs and is used in industrial purposes. Recycled car tires are used for the production of car tires and rubber shoes.
Chemical elements, including precious metals, extracted from disposed electric goods can be recycled and reused in new equipment.
CHAPTER 2
EMPIRICAL PART
2.1. Sorting of household garbage
From April to November our family conducted an empirical experiment of separate garbage collection. The results are impressive.
During 6 months we collected and sorted all types of our household garbage: paper, plastic, glass and food waste.
We installed a compost box for food waste where it decomposed and was used as fertilizer for plants further on.
We stored paper (different kinds of boxes, magazines and newspapers) in the boxes and later we handed it over to the paper recycling point.
Plastic bottles were washed, pressed and put to special containers for plastic.
We also disposed old clothes and home textiles that gone out of useinto special containers.
At first the process of disposal was difficult as we failed to find special containers for separate garbage collection in our micro district. People put all types of plastic unsorted into the containers for PET bottles. They put there even plastic containers from household cleaning products and packaging from various car liquids though this plastic garbage requires special disposal. But thanks to bloggers-environmentalists, in particular Anna Voityukova, we found the recycling collection point in our city. There is a recycling collection point for sorted garbage in the Mega area near the Ikea store in the open parking lot. It works 24/7 and there are special containers for household garbage disposal.
It should be mentioned that thanks to this collection point we were able to sort plastic by markings.
There is a special marking in the form of triangular “recycle-reuse” on polypropylene packaging.
In the collection point of sorted garbage we even were able to place separately collected packaging by marking. Thus we joined the concept of zero waste – way of life in which people attempt to minimize the amount of garbage in order to keep the planet clean.
For collection points one can and should collect plastic bottles with marking: 1 (PET), packaging from dairy products with marking 2 and 6 (HDPE/PEHD); plastic containers from cleaning goods, shampoos and gels with marking 1 and 2; plastic caps from food goods bottles one should collect separately as they are made of more solid plastic and its value is higher.
There are charity funds that help sick children which arrange collection of plastic caps.
We also were able to dispose plastic packaging from pasta, cereals, ice-cream, chocolate and so on. They have polypropylene marking 5PP.
And all collected separately garbage is easy to dispose.
2.2. Questionnaire method
In the course of the study we used a questionnairemethod to find out if people are aware of ways of separate garbage collection and the collection points for disposal of sorted garbage.
Questionnaire– is a structured set of questions for receiving answers from respondents. The questionnaire is mainly used for mass survey.
The questionnaire consists of three blocks:
1) introduction or preamble which contains the aim of the survey, information about the surveyors, instruction for filling in and the guarantee of anonymity of the responses;
2) main part, including the list of questions;
3) requisite part (passport) containing questions reflecting socio-demographic characteristics of respondents: name, age, gender, etc..
Having studied the questionnaire method we created the following questionnaire:
QUESTIONNAIRE
Do you care about the problem of household garbage?
Do you believe that if we don’t buy packaged goods then the amount of garbage will reduce?
Are you aware of the ways of separate garbage collection?
Are you aware of disposal points for sorted garbage?
Are you ready to start separate garbage collection and dispose it to recycling collection points?
If you don’t use recycling collection points, what is the reason?
Are there enough garbage cans on your street and next to your house?
Do you often buy plastic bags in the shop or do you prefer to use reusable rag bags?
9. What will you do if you need to get rid of light garbage (such as a candy wrapper, an unnecessary list of paper, an empty plastic bottle) but there is no special container for it nearby?
A) will take it with me and throw it out in other place;
B) will leave the garbage here so that it doesn’t catch one’s eye;
C) will throw it out here regardless the availability of the container;
10. Do you participate in the annual environmental clean-ups for the collection of solid waste?
A) participate actively;
B) participate but not always;
C) avoid participation;
D) have never participated.
11. What categories of solid waste do prevail in the composition of your daily garbage (by volume)?
A) food waste;
B) glass and plastic garbage;
C) paper and cardboard;
D) other (metal products, construction rubbish, etc.);
12. What do you think about separate garbage collection?
A) I consider separate garbage collection necessary and mandatory to solve the problem of solid waste;
B) I consider it necessary but I wouldn’t like to collect garbage into separate containers;
C) I think it won’t solve the problem of garbage.
CHAPTER 3
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As a result of our experiment we can state that household garbage of our family reduced by 70%. We throw only 30% of our household garbage into containers in our micro district. All remaining garbage one can and should sort for recycling.
Based on the analysis of the questionnaire results we can say that only 10 % of the respondents are aware of the possibility of garbage recycling. 3 % of the respondents make efforts to sort household waste.
Many people would like to sort garbage but have no information where it can be utilized. Plastic and food garbage prevail in solid household waste of the respondents.
The good news is that a lot of people are not indifferent to the environmental problem of our planet.
FINDINGS
We figured out the mechanism of garbage disposal in our city of Ufa;
Studied the conditions for the realization and disposal of separate garbage in the city;
Studied the ways of reuse of garbage;
During the period of the research study we disposed household garbage separately for recycling;
Conducted a survey among acquaintances, friends and classmates, in order to find out if they are aware of the ways of separate garbage collection and the points of disposal of sorted garbage.
Thus we draw the following conclusions:
Household garbage is a serious ecological problem of all humanity which brings harm to environment and the health of humans that proves the hypothesis of the research.
We gave many examples of the reuse of household garbage.
The promotion of environmental knowledge and environmental education should be conducted from an early age in our country. And such work will bring positive results.
One should start from every family, from conscious approach to the problem of ecology.
CONCLUSION
Summing up all above I would like to note that despite the relevance of the problem of garbage disposal residents of our city are still far away from the point of conscious sorting of household waste. According to the survey results only 10% of respondents are aware of the possibility of reuse of garbage and only 3% of respondents are trying to sort household waste to some extent.
The study and practical application of garbage sorting is a long-term and painstaking task.But it is necessary to start educational work in this field as early as possible and to accustom residents of our city and the younger generation to separate garbage collection.
No doubt that a large part of work on installing sorting containers with appropriate marking depends on the leaders of the districts. After all, not every family can regularly travel to remote recycling collection points.
But such practice should be implemented everywhere as it is done in leading developed countries. In megacities where garbage formation is inevitable, garbage recycling activities should be carried out, as well as educational work in the field of separate garbage collection.
References
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