When it comes to recycling, this is something that is not having enough exposure, in my opinion. I believe that more can be done, despite how far we have come with regard to how wastes are recycled. In this day and age, there is some trash that shouldn’t be a problem at all, not everything belongs in the trash bag, and not everything loses its value once you’re done with it.
We need to learn about recyclables and their importance in keeping the environment clean. One major problem we face these days is the waste issue. People throw their trash anyhow they want, littering the street, blocking the canals, and ruining the roads. With a good recycling system in place, this problem would more or less be cut in half.
I’m currently based in Lagos, and here there are measures that are in place for recycling products. If you gather enough plastic bottles, you can sell them and make money. Tins and cans can also be sold because they too have resale value. These are things that many of us consume on a daily basis and we simply discard them when we’re done. However, we now see that we can use those wastes for other things.
This is not something that is new to me. I’ve always known about it. Close to where I stay, there is a family that does it as a hustle. They buy bottles and plastics from everyone in the area. If you want to sell, you simply take it to their house and they’ll buy it from you. Then, with trucks, they take the bottles to wherever it is that they take them. And that’s how it goes.
Like I said before, for me, there is no reliable system in place to promote recycling. Many people still don’t even know about it, and those who do know don’t see it as important. They’d rather discard their trash poorly than take some time to properly discover the systems of recycling in their area.
For me, I would suggest that more spots be built so that people can recycle anywhere at all. For some, the amount of money they would spend on traffic alone would discourage them. And then, another issue I'm sure of is orientation. Recycling needs more orientation. I know that people sell recyclables and it can be a way of making money. But in my country, we have this annoying trait of classism where people tend to see themselves as being above certain things.
There are many people who would not see themselves as capable of recycling, and relegate it to the poor only. They forget that recycling is not done because you need money, it’s done to protect the environment from something that will most definitely kill it. You can’t be too rich to recycle, you can’t be too smart or too dumb for it either. This is something that gives us a cleaner and safer environment and we shouldn’t treat it with kids gloves.
For now, we’ve started a culture of recycling, however, I can only hope that it gets better. We become more informed and we start to take it more seriously. Because the more we do it, the better our environment gets. Maybe there will be more incentives for those who recycle, forcing people to clean up their environments themselves.
I hope that we do better.
