He knows how to classify waste in his home - The Chronicle of Quindío - News Quindío, Colombia and El Mundo

Autor : Natalia Ospina Duque

Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development

Recycling rather than a fashion theme is a necessity to protect the environment.In Colombia there is resolution 2184 of 2019, which resolves in its article 1 adopt the “National Single Format for the Presentation of the Rational Use Program for Plastic Bags and the Progress Report”

Johana Suárez Montejo, an environmental lawyer, said that talking about recycling in Quindío is very important.

“In 2020 the Andalusia Sanitary Fill - which is the only filling activated in the department of Quindío - received approximately 82.637 tons of garbage, that is, all kinds of waste that were not properly separated and lost their useful life, this is equivalent to approximately 33 Olympic swimming pools and 60 % of these waste can be compostable ”.

The lawyer explained that the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development issued Resolution 2184 of 2019 for which it was supposed to start governing the Code of Colors..

What to put in each bag?

The white color is for those waste that can be usable, which still have a useful life within the production chains, there we find plastic, not all, but some types of plastic, glass, cardboard and on many occasions tooaluminum.

The black bag is where the waste that does not have any kind of use within the value chain, such as the useful napkins, the kitchen paper that has already been used or the pizza boxes.

The green bag is where organic waste goes

“We have seen a very big lack and I think it is something constantly presents within all people and it is: 'I for what I separate the waste if I finally take my bags the truck that collects, it will take everything and theis going to mix '.Well, this was how entrepreneurs began to emerge that are not only responsible for collecting waste that is still useful such as glass or cardboard, but also enterprises that are doing a very judicious exercise with their users of organic waste collection, something that was born froma citizen commitment to want to participate, to really commit and understand that we must start generating actions that mitigate, above all, climate change ”.

The environmental lawyer said that sanitary landfills are one of the main generators of methane gas, one of the main accelerators of climate change.

“It is also very important that we begin to look for alternatives not only for the classification of waste, but another kind of waste that is outside, such as, for example, used oils, there are also ventures that collect those waste in the houses, in therestaurants, in hotels.For many times these went to water sources generating greater pollution ”.

On the other hand, there is the collection of special and hazardous waste that have a special and different treatment, so it is very important to be attentive to the campaigns that the environmental authority performs and be ableadequate.

“A tip that is very important for me and I like it a lot to do with love bottles, it is an entrepreneurship that was born with the interest of mitigating, but also generating innovation and technology, where in plastic bottles all kinds of plastic are compact, totally clean packaging and then all this melts to generate plastic wood, urban furniture ”.

Likewise, he said that the best residue is always the one that is not generated.“We must constantly ask ourselves if necessary what we are buying, we can carry our bag to pack the purchases, it is a very large action because we are stopping generating single -use bags, also having our own thermos in which we take liquids, smallchanges make great differences ".

Finally, he said that it is essentialwhere organic waste is also collected.