Our Town | Our Future
Sustainable Wymondham

Waste

In nature, there is no such thing as waste.

Sadly, humans think otherwise and our activities seem designed to produce as much waste as we can in myriad forms, from single use plastics, discarded overproduced food and carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere.

Graphic image of graduated rainbow pyramid (green top to red bottom) showing the hierarchy of dealing with waste, as follows: Prevent/Rethink - Refuse - Reduce - Reuse/Refill - Repurpose - Repair - Rehome - Recycle - Landfill

We have polluted the ground beneath our feet, the deepest depths of the oceans and even the space beyond the atmosphere of our planet.

In the UK alone, in 2018 we generated a total 222.2 million tonnes of waste. How can we be happy with this situation, knowing that waste costs money to produce and to deal with? Why do we continue to harm ourselves and the planet we stand on and not consider an alternative future where – like the rest of nature – waste doesn’t exist because we use our resources in the most efficient and sustainable ways?

We must learn – quickly – how to deal with every human produced item in such a way that it does not end up in the air, seas or earth in a state that cannot be managed by the rest of nature without causing harm.

And you never know, we may make the world a safer, kinder, more beautiful place, simply by thinking about not throwing something away.

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