Technically, rubbish is whatever we throw away after its useful life is

completed. However, do we always throw away things after its useful life is over? What is a product’s ‘useful life’?To determine whether something should be thrown away, we should consider can I repair it or determine what potential uses that item might have. For instance:

  • A mouldy shower curtain…with a quick scrub, it’s as good as new .
  • An old sofa…you may not like the fabric anymore or it has a few too many food stains for your liking. What can you do?
  • Reupholster or
  • give it away to another person who doesn’t mind a few stains
  • You have a three year old computer with a hard drive that cannot cope with all your programmes. You need a new one to accommodate your new programmes and new Windows operating system. What do you do with the old one?
  • Even though you have outgrown the capabilities of your old computer, it can still be used by other groups such as schools and charities.
  • Programmes such as Rehab’s Promise-it service take old computers, clean them up, clear out the hard drive and sell them on to other organisations at a vastly reduced price. This is a better use of your old computer than recycling or disposal.
  • You may consider your old things waste, but one person’s waste is another person’s treasure. Before you throw something out, either try to sell it on one of the many websites (Buy and Sell, Done Deal or others) or give it away on www.dublinwaste.ie, www.jumbletown.ie, or www.gumtree.ie.
  • I had bags of wine corks that I didn’t want to throw away, thinking that someday I might make a cork board. This never happened, but I put my corks on the Dublin waste site, and I had three people interested within one day. They went off to some art project.
  • My mother-in-law had some old curtain fabric that she thought she would like to use for pillows. It stayed in the attic for years. We put this on Dublin waste and it was gone within hours.

What about reusing something for another purpose?

  • Old bathtubs are great for planting carrots in your back garden. Their high sides keep away the carrot fly.
  • Food scraps and garden waste can be turned into lovely compost.
  • Check out this website to find ways to reuse old items. They even have suggestions for old toothpaste tubes! http://www.squidoo.com/reuse-everything

Don’t forget about Recycling.If something cannot be reused, the components of the product are still valuable. For instance, there is more gold in one tonne of mobile phones than in one tonne of ore.

  • You have replaced your old radiator, do you hire a skip and have someone else put it into the local landfill?
  • Call your local authority who will collect it or
  • Drop it off to a metal scrap recycler – scrap metal has a high value.
  • Your broken iron, surely its useful life is over…
  • Under the EU WEEE programme, all electrical items, big or small, can be collected either at point of sale (where you buy your new iron) or at a local amenity centre.
  • Components in your iron include metal and plastic, which can be recycled and used for another product.

Most products can be broken down into their base components and recycled into something new. The EU is promoting resource efficiency and waste prevention, which go hand in hand. We are harvesting and extracting natural resources at an alarming rate. According to the EU’s “ Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe,”[o]ver the 20th century, the world increased its fossil fuel use by a factor of 12, whilst extracting 34 times more material resources. Today in the EU, each person consumes 16 tonnes of materials annually, of which 6 tonnes are wasted, with half going to landfill. Trends show, however, that the era of plentiful and cheap resources is over. Businesses are facing rising costs for essential raw materials and minerals, their scarcity and price volatility are having a damaging effect on the economy. Sources of minerals, metals and energy, as well as stocks of fish, timber, water, fertile soils, clean air, biomass, biodiversity are all under pressure, as is the stability of the climate system. Whilst demand for food, feed and fibre may increase by 70% by 2050, 60% of the world’s major ecosystems that help produce these resources have already been degraded or are used unsustainably. If we carry on using resources at the current rate, by 2050 we will need, on aggregate, the equivalent of more than two planets to sustain us, and the aspirations of many for a better quality of life will not be achieved.This is a scary statement. However, we can address this and overcome the daunting challenge by changing the way we think about ‘rubbish’. Additionally, reusing and recycling products has a knock-on effect of developing new businesses and creating new jobs.The next time you’re tempted to throw something away after its useful life is over, think, ‘can I repair it?’, ‘can I reuse it?’, or ‘can I recycle it?’Join VOICEphotos by www.flickr/creativecommons by David A Villa and DaveBleasdale

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