We all have a lot of organic and other waste lying around in our house. Most of the time it is thrown into the dustbin or drained down the washbasin or sink. This waste can be classified essentially for the purposes of this article into 3 categories - Decayable Waste, Burnable Material and Indestructible Stuff.
Decayable Waste
Remove all organic matter after you have finished cooking or eating and throw it at the foot of the coconut tree. This does not include paper and other burnable material. Ignore Organic Chemistry lessons from school for now :-) ...
Don't leave food particles and waste - both from processing [cooking & cleaning] and leftovers - lying around in your house for the cockroaches, geckos, rats, ants and other pests to feed on - even in the waste basket. Use it as manure. Let the food rot at the foot of the tree. This prevents the stench of decaying matter from building up.
Do this EVERYDAY. Do not keep it for the weekly waste clearance people or the municipality to clean it monthly [?] from the streets where you surreptitiously abandon it. If you have a compost pit or if someone nearby has it, talk to them about dumping it there regularly.
Burnable Material
This is about increasing your carbon footprint.
Remove all possible traces of food from the plastic and paper used to pack the food item. Keep them in a separate container in your garage or any other dry place that is safe from rainwater.
Once a month or when the volume is large enough, make sure that they are dry and incinerate them in a safe location. Throw the ashes at the foot of the tree. Do not burn these at the foot of the tree but somewhere safe.
Mix the plastic and other burnable material according to a plan. Make sure you have dry paper [closely packed with dry plastic] at sufficient intervals. They should be spaced evenly between the slow burning material. The paper will catch fire easily and transfer it to the plastic [preferably thin sheets]. The plastic will melt into the paper and together they will burn longer, hotter and more destructively ensuring that the waste is ALL burnt and nothing but ashes are left.
Indestructible Stuff
After similarly cleaning the Aluminium foils, glass bottles and indestructible plastic keep them in a safe place. Crush all plastic bottles as well. There are recycling scavengers who will buy this material from you. Even if you do not charge any money for it at least you are helping in recycling and contributing to someone's income.
Do try to categorize and sort them. Trust me it is not too much trouble. You might be wondering why spend extra time on garbage. But once you have a system in place which you follow religiously, it actually saves you time.
