There's beauty in recycling

SEARCH for Ginoong Lakan and Binibining Lakamabini in the field of Science was held lately. It is a unique beauty pageant whose contestants competed for the best in costumes that were made out of recyclable materials. Creative designs from recycle wastes were embellished as each contestant ramped and projected each artistic and inventive creation on stage. The gowns and gears of the contestants were made of plastic junk materials, straws, paper plates, garbage bags, rice sacks, magazines and bottle covers.

The event was organized by Grace Tiglao, Marilyn Degay and Sharon Sendayen, in coordination with DepEd Baguio. The search is still ongoing in some public schools in the region .This is to enhance and inform the students about correct ecological solid waste management and theses and benefits of recyclable waste.

Management of our solid waste should be carried out in the right way. There is a need for all of us to be well-informed about proper waste handling and management. Solid waste can be seen everywhere such as discarded household commercial waste, on-hazardous institutional and industrial waste, street sweeping, construction debris, agricultural waste and other non-hazardous and non-toxic solid waste.

But didn't you know that this solid waste can be very useful? Papers, glasses and aluminums can be recycled. We can extract useful materials from garbage or waste, to use again and to reprocess, to recondition and adapt to a new use or function like recycling an old warehouse to a condominium. This process is called recycling. It is associated with the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. To reduce is decreasing the amount of dangerous chemicals that seeps into the soil and pollute the air due to improper waste disposal. Reuse is to maintain and repair durable products, donating or selling instead of throwing them and recycle is to choose recyclable materials and recycle them.

Recyclable materials refers to any waste material retrieved from the waste stream and free from contamination that can still be converted into new suitable beneficial use. These may be transformed into new products in such a manner that the original products may lose their identity.

Examples are newspaper, ferrous scrap metal, non-ferrous scrap metal, corrugated card board, aluminum, glass, office papers and tin cans.

According to Michael Arms, there are several benefits of recycling. He stated: "Recycling has financial benefits; there are so many things in the households that are still useful and can be sold, instead of bringing them on the dumpsite, recycling help conserve limited resources and can also save energy."

He added, "Recycling can build community by working together promoting proper waste segregation, refilling and incinerating through recycling can create jobs, and can create strong economy and recycling is earth friendly."

Recyclable waste materials should be taken to the material recovery facility in very barangay or cluster of barangays where that are received, sorted, processed and store efficiently and in an environmental sound manner.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): "Recycling is a process; it is a series of activities within a loop, a cycle that includes the separation and collection of materials that are considered wastes; the processing and remanufacturing of these items into new products and the use of the recycled products to complete the cycle."

(References: Wikipedia/Michael Arms and Environmental Management Bureau-DENR)