It is essential to start our article by talking about what the concept of Zero-waste means, its social equivalent, the projects carried out by the government in this direction, and the incentives of private companies and non-governmental organizations in order to understand the zero-waste issue fully.
From this point of view, the concept of zero-waste is a target defined as a
waste management philosophy that covers the prevention of waste, the more efficient use of resources, the prevention or minimization of waste generation by reviewing the reasons for waste generation, the collection of waste separately at its source and ensuring its recovery.
In fact, besides being a concept, it is a vision of the future. Developing technology, population growth, and urbanization due to the industrial revolution caused a lot of waste. This causes soil, water, and air pollution.
Reckless use of resources, of course, is a harbinger that they will run out one day. As it can just be understood with such a superficial view, the zero-waste goal is a necessity beyond a dream.
The disposal of wastes without being evaluated in the recycling and recovery process causes serious resource losses in terms of both material and energy. While the population and living standards in the world increase, there is an inevitable increase in consumption, which increases the pressure on our natural resources and disrupts the balance of the world, and our limited resources cannot keep up with the increasing needs.
Considering this situation, the importance of efficient use of natural resources becomes even more evident. For this reason, in recent years, zero-waste implementation studies have become widespread all over the world, individually, institutionally, and throughout the municipality.
We know that the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization is running a project called ZERO-WASTE BLUE. Within the scope of this very important project, a “ZERO-WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE” has been published and it is aimed to
approach the zero-waste dream step by step with the awareness that everyone is responsible, from the most specific to the general.
In this guide, the preparation of the work team, which means the establishment of a work team by determining the responsible person or persons who will follow the process from the installation, implementation and monitoring of the zero-waste management system,
is determined as the first step.
“PLANNING” - which means determining the type and sources of waste, revealing the status of the equipment used and the relevant personnel, planning the transition to the system, determining the factors that may affect the type and
amount of waste - appears as the second stage.
As the third stage, we see “EDUCATION / AWARENESS ACTIVITIES”. This stage includes the activities of realizing training and awareness-raising activities for the target audience and encouraging their participation in the application in order to disseminate the zero-waste
management system.
MONITORING, RECORD KEEPING, AND IMPROVEMENT stage, which is determined as the last stage, is the monitoring by the work team at certain time intervals to evaluate the effectiveness of the application and, and the activities to be handled such as the deficiencies of the application, the deficiencies or the sides to be improved and to eliminate the deficiencies if any exist.
Of course, when it comes to zero-waste Target and Management, a hierarchy of responsibilities emerges. Although the responsibility of a single worker or boss is not the same in Zero-Waste Target, the entire society is responsible for this target.
The first step that all the subjects agree on this issue, is the separation of wastes, which is perhaps the most effortless part of this responsibility. For the last ten years, almost everywhere in our country, there are containers or underground waste centers where we can separate wastes according to their classes.
This is the easiest method of separation that the entire community can do. Following
this process, some of the wastes are recycled, some are transformed into energy, and some are destroyed with the least damage to nature.
The large scales of the simple example we have given above, which are more elaborate and require chemical expertise, are called industrial waste management and are subject to processes that proceed under the control of the Ministry.
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