It’s amazing the amount of waste that is produced in a typical office setting, and that is apart from all the other rubbish that is produced in todays society, that adversely impacts on the environment. It really is time for us all to start treating our planet with due care so that it’s lasts for many more millenium.
Heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium etc can contaminate groundwater ecosystems. The resulting pollution is discharged into surface waters.
Lead is a poison found in the solder joins of a some electrical equipment,
Consider the number of flourescent lights in an average office building and then realise that 4.5 mgs of mercury is found in each fluorescent lighting tube. The mercury in five tubes can contaminate up to 30,000 litres of water so that it is no longer within safe drinking levels. Mercury and other heavy metals ‘biomagnify’ or accumulate along the food chain.
Increases to greenhouse gas emissions affect not only the environment but our health as shown in the increase in asthma sufferers.
Food scraps that find their way into landfill, attract disease carrying birds, such as the sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopica). The ibis is known to spread avian flu to local native bird populations.
Food scraps also attract other scavenger and predatory birds such as the silver gull (Larus novaehollandiae), a bird that has increased to plague proportions.
By discarding reusable resources such as metals, glass, plastics and using them as landfill means that we need to mine and manufacture more of our natural resources to meet consumer demand. Simply by recycling aluminium cans and manufacturing them into new cans, less bauxite is required to be mined and manufactured into aluminium ingots. Recycling cans means that less energy is required to process the raw mineral into aluminium. The same applies to the use of sand in the production of glass.
Recycling of paper and cardboard means new paper products can be produced without additional forest logging. The paper recycling process requires less water, chlorine, and energy than paper pulp from virgin wood fibre.
And please take care to not contaminate the recycling…
Empty and rinse half full drink containers before placing them in the recycling bins and its very important to take care not to place food scraps in the recycling bins.
Just think about this, one tea bag accidentally put into a recycle bin means that up to 10 kg of recyclable material will be contaminated and have to go to the tip.
So let’s all take responsibility for our actions and do our bit to save the planet, after all it’s the only home we have.