What happens to our waste?

About two years ago, my family and I decided to be more conscious about our impact on our planet and the environment. We began our vegetarian journey and along side with it, we decided to be more conscious about our waste. We used to throw everything away in just one container and did not think about what happened to it after it left our home. Because of it, we decided to separate our waste in order to make it easier to recycle and reuse.

We separate our waste in three categories, organic waste, not recyclable waste and recyclable waste (paper, plastic, glass, cardboard, etc.). We have a large backyard with plants, and fruit trees, so at the beginning, we used our organic waste as compost. However, we recently heard about a small business that is collecting organic waste and in exchange they give you a bucket of compost ready to use. So, every two weeks they come for our organic waste and give us compost. For the recyclable waste, there is not much to do with it at home, but there are people that come to our neighborhood to collect this waste and they get paid for it. Finally, we send the remaining waste with the city’s trash collector.

A recent project that I have been working on is creating biomaterials with organic waste. I am just starting, but I find it fascinating how much can we do with things we think are only waste. I learned how to create a hard concrete-like material with eggshells and gelatin, and I look forward to keeping experimenting with other organic waste.