Eco-project "“Trip ...for litter!”: Utilizators: our results

Do you know that:

everyday life gives a lot of litter
most of the food we buy is packed and some parts of the packing materials are decomposed during different amont of time
in Estonia 450 kg of wastes per person per year and 140 of it come from packings
on the Earth for each of 6 billion people - 1 tonn of wates per year.
if people didn't destroy the litter during 1 year, it would erect like Elbrus mountain

Kinds of litter:

paper and cardboard: newspapers, papers, paper bags, books, notebooks, any paper things without plastic parts.E.g.: adhesive tape, tetra packings are not a paper waste. Facts to remember: to produce paper a lot of wood is needed, as well as energy. When we save it, we save our forests and natural resourses. In many European countries more than 50% of used paper is recycled. And from 1 kg of old paper 1,6 kg of new paper can be produced. 1 kg paper needs 1,5 kWH of energy and 1,8 kg of wood. If you obtain 70 kg of used paper to recycle you may save 1 tree.

plastic packings: plastic bottles with sign PET, plastic bags. But the following plastic things are not for recycling: shampoo bottles, bottles for paints, combs, toys. Facts to know: Plastic is decomposed very slowly in nature, sometimes more than 500 years. If it's not bioplastic, which is cmposed during much shorter time.

metall: tins, alluminium cans, corks from bottles and jars. Metall things which can't be recycled: aerosol bottles, paint packings. Fact to know: packings made of metall is used more seldom now that some 20 years ago.

glass: empty glass сontainers, glass bottles and jars of any colours. But window glass, containers after chemicals, bulbs, mirrows, ceramics, crystals are not available for recycling. It's interesting: natural glass was used already in times of Stone Ages. The first glass production is known since Ancient Egypt (appr. 2000 B.C.years ago).

organic wastes: food wastes, sawdust, leaves, parts of plants, dust, coffee filters and so on. Organic wates packed in paper or plastic doesn't belong to this group. Compost doesn't harm environment. But you should remember, that it's forbidden to place it near bodies of water, wells and it's good place for rodants like mice , rats.

dangerous wastes: accumulators, batteries, medicines,oil filters, rests of paints, glue, fluorescent lamps, chemicals, lab wastes, thermometres, poison for rodants and insects, mechanisms. Facts to know: from all the wastes these are the most dangerous and poisonous. And what is really bad that it's very difficult to destroy them.

   Periods of litter decomposition in nature

Food wastes 10 days- 1 month

Newspaper 1 months-1 season

Leaves, limbs 1 months-1 season

Cardboards boxes 1 season

Paper 2 years

Cans 10 years

Old boots 10 years

Bricks, blocks 100 years

Car accumulators 100 years

Foil and tins 90+100 years

El batteries 100 years

Rubber 100 years

plastic bottles more than 100 years
(полиэтиленовая пленка -200 лет)

Alluminium 500 years

Glass More than 1000 years


   KEEP IT IN MIND,
WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR WASTES IN NATURE!!!

   Positive experience of other countries

In many European countries people use separate containers for different kinds of wastes. It save means for its recycling. Many kinds of watses are not destroed but recycled to other useful things, e.g. paper, metall, glass.

In the USA and Canada people use bottles made of acryl plastic that are used 100 times.
British scientists are working now to produce packings from polymers, which can be composed in the soil .
Austrian scientists proved that sheep can eat cheap food made of paper for 60 %.
Chemists from Warsaw found out that if you add 8% of plastics into the asphalt mass, the quality of it will improve. It won't crack because of frost and melt because of hot weathers.

In Sweden people can throw away wastes both in separate containers or in one big container. But in the last case they will pay for waste sorting. And it's 5 times more. Moreover you must separate parts of tea bag to paper. metall and tea grains. All these parts shoulg go to different container. There are a lot of cameras used to watch people sorting their wastes, otherwise they'll be fined.

If you want to have a very interesting and educational travel in the wastes time machine, use this link:
http://musoranety.narod.ru/timemashine.html

Utilisation
Metal, paper, some glass can be recycled
Ash, ceramics, wood wastes, and others that don't change their properties can be burried.

But there are many groups of wastes that can't be recycled or burried, but must be processed in between. These are first of all liquid wastes: oils, chemicals, alkalis and so on.

Part of the wastes are burned: mostly pastic. But its burning is often dangerous for environment.

Project implementation

Litter we'll find in the forest: plastic bottles, glass bottles, drawstring bags, cigarettes and cigarett boxes, packages for nuts, chips, etc.
We'll put plastic in white, glass in black, and paper in green bags.
Some paper wastes which are not dangerous we'll burn, but most part of it must be taken to a town place for wastes.

Equipment needed