One beautiful day, Bernie Busuttil and Yolanda Ellul decided to go for a walk along the valley. While walking, they encountered a mountain of rubbish caused by littering and deliberate fly-tipping. A call for help from a tiny bee stopped them in their tracks. They asked the bee who was causing all this litter, and it was then that the tiny bee told them about the Garbage Monster. A malice monster that feeds on waste and needs it to survive, and so he is always creating more and more waste. Upon this discovery, they were compelled to take action. And so, they became General Buzz and Commander Yellow, our modern-day eco-warriors.
This story and many others were created by WasteServ as short comics to appeal to kids and make them more aware of the importance of proper waste management, and the impact waste has on our environment. However, there is a lesson for grown-ups too in all this. Unknowingly, sometimes we too help the Garbage Monster in his quest to create more waste.
WasteServ estimates that a staggering 25% of the recycling bag, which you may know as either the green or grey bag depending on where you live, is made up of incorrect items that should not have made their way there. Organic waste, glass, textiles, electronic waste, medical and sanitary waste, and even DIY materials such as wood scraps, tiles and rubble are some of the most common items wrongly placed in the recycling bag. This poses several challenges and can jeopardise the whole processing cycle.
To understand better the consequences that such actions have on the recycling potential and the environment, it would help if we all become more familiar with the process that takes place once the recycling bags are put outside our houses for door-to-door collection.
All recycling bags are taken to WasteServ’s facility in Marsascala. They are then loaded onto a bag opener – a large piece of equipment containing a drum that is fitted with spikes that tears away the plastic bags as it turns slowly. This will cause all the items that were in the bags to fall onto a conveyor belt. At this stage, the sorting starts. This involves having several sorters along the conveyor belt sorting through the different materials which they will then throw into a designated chute. Once the different materials – paper, cardboard, metal, clear plastic, and coloured plastic – are sorted, these are baled and made ready for export. WasteServ sells its recyclables on local, European and even international marketplaces so that they can be transformed into new products.
You may be asking what’s wrong with occasionally throwing in an old mobile phone given that the items are getting sorted anyway once at the facility. However, that mobile phone that has been thrown in the recycling bag most probably won’t make it to the sorting stage. It is highly likely that that mobile phone would have caught on fire when still in the bag opener machine. The heat produced during this stage is enough for that mobile phone’s battery to quickly result into a fire as it heats up next to other highly flammable materials such as paper and cardboard.
You will also be putting WasteServ's workers’ health at risk, and not just because of the fire. Although fully equipped with gloves, masks and safety glasses, there is a greater risk of injury when workers must sort through pieces of broken glass, rubble, and syringes. Not to mention the unpleasant smells when nappies and other sanitary waste is inadvertently thrown together with the recyclables.
Ultimately, by placing the wrong items in the recycling bag, you would be diminishing the quality of the recycled end-material. Even small amounts of contaminants can ruin an entire batch of materials and once materials are contaminated, their value and potential to be turned into new products dwindles.
Nowadays, there are many resources available to help you know what can and cannot be recycled. WasteServ has even launched a handy Waste Separation Guide which can be downloaded from their website: wsm.com.mt/guide.
So, next time you are not sure whether an item belongs in the recycling bag make sure to check. And if you want to follow the stories of General Buzz and Commander Yellow as they fight the Garbage Monster, we invite to visit ecohive.com.mt/kids where you can read all their stories.
This article is sponsored content.