Disposal Of Garbage

DISPOSAL OF GARBAGE

'Disposal of garbage' means 'to get rid of garbage'. Some of the important methods (or modes) of garbage disposal are:

1. Composting,
2. Vermicomposting,
3. Recycling,
4. Reuse, and
5. Landfill.

COMPOSTING

The rotted plant and animal waste (including that from kitchen) used as a manure for growing plants is called compost. And the process of converting plant and animal waste materials into manure by rotting is called composting. Compost is a natural fertiliser. Compost contains nutrients required for the growth of plants. So, when compost is mixed with the soil in which plants are grown, it provides nutrients to the plants.

Redworms

Redworms are a kind of earthworms (see Figure 4). The redworms have a remarkable ability to convert plant matter such as fruit and vegetable peels, left-over cooked food and green leaves, etc., into a very high quality manure called vermicompost. Thus, the very high quality compost made by redworms is called vermicompost (vermicompost means compost made by worms).

VERMICOMPOSTING

The method of making compost from kitchen wastes (or kitchen garbage) by using redworms is called vermicomposting. The compost made by using redworms is called vermicompost. Vermicompost is a very high quality manure. We can prepare vermicompost by digging a pit in the ground or by using a wooden box or a metal bin. Vermicompost can be made at home or in school as follows.

ACTIVITY

1. Dig a pit about 30 centimetres deep in the ground (or keep a wooden box) at a place which is neither too hot nor too cold. The place should also not get direct sunlight. Spread a chicken mesh (or 1 to 2 cm thick layer of sand) at the bottom of the pit.
2. The kitchen garbage containing fruit and vegetable peels, left-over cooked food, tea-leaves, etc., is now spread over the chicken mesh or sand layer. Other waste plant materials such as green leaves, dried stalks, husk, pieces of paper or newspaper, and cardboard can also be added. However, plastic coated paper (laminated paper) should not    be added. The animal waste such as dried cow dung can also be used for making vermicompost.
3. Sprinkle some water in the pit to make the layer of garbage wet. Do not use excess of water. The layer of garbage in the pit should not be compressed. The layer of garbage should be kept loose so that it has sufficient air and moisture.
4. Buy some redworms from the market and put them in the pit (or box) containing kitchen garbage and other such wastes. Cover the pit loosely with a gunny bag or an old sheet of cloth or a layer of grass. Once in a few days mix and move the top layers in the pit.
5. Redworms eat the rotting (or decaying) garbage of the pit as food. Redworms do not have teeth. They have a structure in their body called 'gizzard' which helps in grinding the food which they eat. Powdered egg-shells (or sea-shells) are usually mixed with the kitchen waste in the pit. The hard particles of egg-shells (or sea-shells) help the redworms in grinding their food in the gizzard. A redworm can eat food equal to its own weight in a day.The excretions of redworms keep on collecting in the pit. These excretions of redworms make up vermicompost. Observe the contents of the pit after 3 to 4 weeks. We will see loose, soil-like material in the pit. This is vermicompost.
6. Put some fresh kitchen waste (such as left-over food) in one corner of the pit. All the redworms will shift towards the corner of the pit containing food. Remove the vermicompost from vacated part of the pit and dry it in the sunshine for a few hours. Vermicompost is now ready for use. This vermicompost can be used as an excellent manure in the pots (having plants), garden or fields. The redworms left in the pit can be used for preparing more vermicompost or given to another person for this purpose.             

Only the garbage containing plant and animal wastes can be converted into vermi compost by redworms (because redworms can eat up these materials). The garbage containing plastics glass and metal objects cannot be converted into compost by redworms. This is because redworms cannot eat plastics, glass or metal objects.

The advantages of vermicomposting are that it helps us to dispose of kitchen garbage in a proper way and at the same time gives us very high quality manure called 'vermicompost'. Vermicomposting is the best way to turn kitchen garbage into compost (or manure).

It is much better to use compost (or vermicompost) as manure instead of chemical fertilisers because :

1. Making compost (or vermicompost) is quite cheap whereas chemical fertilisers are very expensive and hence a lot of money is spent in buying them,
2. Compost (or vermicompost) is a natural manure which does not harm the soil but chemical fertilisers are man-made which may harm the soil in the long run.

RECYCLING

Recycling means that we should collect and separate the used and discarded items made of paper, plastics, glass and metals, and send them to the respective industries for making fresh paper, plastic, glass and metal objects. For example, the waste papers such as old newspapers, magazines, books and notebooks, etc., are sent to paper mills where they are reprocessed to make new paper or cardboard. The broken and discarded plastic articles such as plastic bags, buckets, mugs, cups, plates and toys, etc., are sent to plastic processing factories where they are melted and remoulded to make new articles

In order to recycle used and discarded materials, we should first separate our household garbage properly so that the waste materials which can be recycled do not get dumped along with other household garbage which is to be thrown away.

REUSE

Reuse means that, if possible, we should use the same things again. For example, the plastic jars in which we buy various food items such as jams, pickles, oils and ghee, etc., can be used later on for storing things like salt, spices, sugar, tea-leaves and pulses, etc. The paper envelopes can be reversed inside out and used again. We can reuse old chart papers to make files or greeting cards. A diary can be made from old invitation cards; mats can be made from old clothes; and baskets from used and old polythene bags. The waste items which can be reused are, however, very limited.

LANDFILL

Landfill is a low-lying area of ground where the garbage collected from a city is dumped. The part of garbage which cannot be disposed of by other methods is loaded in trucks and dumped in the low-lying open area (called landfill) inside or outside the city. Most of the solid garbage from a city which cannot be disposed of by other methods is got rid of by dumping in landfills.

Incineration

In this method, the non-useful garbage is burned at a high temperature in a special kind of furnace called 'incinerator'. This reduces the large amount of garbage into a small amount of ash. This ash is then disposed of in a landfill.