What is the Future of Waste Removal in Australia?
Recent research indicates that Australia sends more than 20 million tonnes of garbage to landfills each year. This statement sent shocks to so many people who never gave a second thought to where trash goes after the truck picks it up from your home. Waste management is an important part of life and business and will continue to be. If you didn't know yet, several scenarios happen to the trash that's picked up from your home.
1. Recycling
After the sanitation worker picks up all the trash from homes, the trucks drive to a transfer station where all waste is dumped temporarily. There are several transfer stations in every county where all the vehicles meet so the garbage is sorted out into recyclables and trash that can decompose. All the recyclables are then transported to a recycling centre where it will then be taken to a manufacturing plant to be used to make new products.
2. Landfills
The remaining garbage is transported to selected landfills and buried for many years until it decomposes. A new landfill is dug once the old one is full and the process continues.
3. Incineration
Many places in Australia use garbage to make power. Trash is burned and turned into ash and heat, which is then converted to energy and used to power several homes or industries. This technique is being adopted in many places because it is better than filling the country with landfills and it's also a cheaper way to generate energy and conserve the environment. By the year 2050, there may not be any available land to dig up more landfills, so it is high time governments found new ways to dispose of waste.
What Does the Future Hold?
Evidently, even with the intention of recycling, there is still a lot of garbage taken to our landfills and polluting our environment. Recently, Sunshine Coast had a high-tech automated waste removal system unveiled, and it will be transporting waste from apartments and commercial buildings through an underground vacuum pipe system. What this means apart from Maroochydore CBD being the cleanest town in Australia is that you will not be seeing those garbage trucks coming around the block to pick trash. This system is already being used in cities across the world such as London, Barcelona and Singapore.
Though the government is taking great measures to ensure waste removal is efficient and safe for the environment, every individual should play their role in recycling as much as possible and avoid buying packed products. It is only through creating awareness and joint effort that global warming will be reduced.