Save with Recycling: A lesson from the developing world.
Tomi Akinyanmi
June 06, 2009
Nothing has made the need to save as glaring as the current state of the economy. For a lot of families, cutting costs has helped meet or curtail the costs associated with the unending demands of mundane existence. For other families identifying the need to save was an easier first step however, knowing where to start has been a rather elusive second step.
Since I grew up in Nigeria, a country often labeled a "third world or developing country" by the rest of the world, the first thing that struck me on my relocation to the US was the amount of waste that is generated on a daily basis. According to Trash trivia (http://www.co.cass.in.us/ccswd/trivia.htm) the average American family is estimated to throw out 4.5 pounds of trash a day; also 2.5 million plastic bottles is thrown away every hour and Paper makes up 40% of landfills. What I find most amazing is that things that could often be reused are ignorantly thrown away as garbage every day. Looking around these days I canīt help but wonder if perhaps people would take a second look at recycling if they were to know how much they can save.
Perhaps it is time we realize that we do have some lessons to learn from the so called "developing countries" where saving is a way of life, afterall and perchance in the process Americans and the "developed world" will also come to realize that developing countries are not actually as backwards as the news constantly makes them out to be. In their desire to save, residents of developing countries seek to get a longer lifespan on their purchases to minimize their costs; in the process, these people have found some rather creative uses for various items that would astound the average resident of a developed country. Here are a few examples from Nigeria. Beyond their use in some homes as garbage or trash can liners, plastic bags are reused for storage much in the same way as Ziploc bags are used in the US. The bags are washed and reused as the need may be and sometimes, they are used as much as ten times or over and finally discarded when they are all torn and too worn for use. You would also find that in some homes, dry egg shells are sun dried and then ground; this powder is used with regular sponges for scouring dirty pots and pans. Bottles from juice and bottled water are washed and used for storing drinking water in the refrigerator; empty evaporated milk cans are opened up on one side, washed out and reused as measuring cups. Also old newspapers are used for wrapping new books to prevent damage to the covers. You would find that most homes have a mini sewing kit consisting of thread and hand needles for a quick mend of ripped clothing. There are also no shortage of shoe cobblers who would readily mend your torn up shoes to make them good as new. Buckets are put out during rainfall to collect water and the water is subsequently boiled or purified with alum crystals for household use. These examples are not exhaustive as there are various ways in which the need to save is implemented but what these people are inadvertently doing is what Americans and the rest of the western world have come to know as "recycling".
Though some of the recycling methods are unorthodox and because the environment is different such methods might not be as effective in other parts of the world, the basic concept for saving through recycling is the same. Many of us laugh at the advertisement on TV where some guy is loading money into the garbage and blowing money out of his garage with a leaf blower but what we do not realize is that it could be us but in our case we might be doing it ignorantly. Maybe in this period of economic redress, itīs high time we take a second look at our garbage and see if there is some money we just might throwing away unawares.
Since I grew up in Nigeria, a country often labeled a "third world or developing country" by the rest of the world, the first thing that struck me on my relocation to the US was the amount of waste that is generated on a daily basis. According to Trash trivia (http://www.co.cass.in.us/ccswd/trivia.htm) the average American family is estimated to throw out 4.5 pounds of trash a day; also 2.5 million plastic bottles is thrown away every hour and Paper makes up 40% of landfills. What I find most amazing is that things that could often be reused are ignorantly thrown away as garbage every day. Looking around these days I canīt help but wonder if perhaps people would take a second look at recycling if they were to know how much they can save.
Perhaps it is time we realize that we do have some lessons to learn from the so called "developing countries" where saving is a way of life, afterall and perchance in the process Americans and the "developed world" will also come to realize that developing countries are not actually as backwards as the news constantly makes them out to be. In their desire to save, residents of developing countries seek to get a longer lifespan on their purchases to minimize their costs; in the process, these people have found some rather creative uses for various items that would astound the average resident of a developed country. Here are a few examples from Nigeria. Beyond their use in some homes as garbage or trash can liners, plastic bags are reused for storage much in the same way as Ziploc bags are used in the US. The bags are washed and reused as the need may be and sometimes, they are used as much as ten times or over and finally discarded when they are all torn and too worn for use. You would also find that in some homes, dry egg shells are sun dried and then ground; this powder is used with regular sponges for scouring dirty pots and pans. Bottles from juice and bottled water are washed and used for storing drinking water in the refrigerator; empty evaporated milk cans are opened up on one side, washed out and reused as measuring cups. Also old newspapers are used for wrapping new books to prevent damage to the covers. You would find that most homes have a mini sewing kit consisting of thread and hand needles for a quick mend of ripped clothing. There are also no shortage of shoe cobblers who would readily mend your torn up shoes to make them good as new. Buckets are put out during rainfall to collect water and the water is subsequently boiled or purified with alum crystals for household use. These examples are not exhaustive as there are various ways in which the need to save is implemented but what these people are inadvertently doing is what Americans and the rest of the western world have come to know as "recycling".
Though some of the recycling methods are unorthodox and because the environment is different such methods might not be as effective in other parts of the world, the basic concept for saving through recycling is the same. Many of us laugh at the advertisement on TV where some guy is loading money into the garbage and blowing money out of his garage with a leaf blower but what we do not realize is that it could be us but in our case we might be doing it ignorantly. Maybe in this period of economic redress, itīs high time we take a second look at our garbage and see if there is some money we just might throwing away unawares.
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