O lixo.

Notas do episódio

I invite you today to talk a little bit about garbage. There are some differences of the words: garbage is used for waste from the kitchen – 'wet' waste, you could say; trash is things like paper and packaging – 'dry' materials. This is not household waste. Litter is small things such as cans, bottles and paper that people leave lying on the streets and in other public places. Garbage corresponds to all waste generated by the activities of humanity, waste that is useless and that people no longer use. Garbage is a human phenomenon, and in nature garbage does not exist, because everything in the environment is renewed and reconstructed from things that could be considered in disuse. We classify garbage as: (a) organic (food scraps, leaves, seeds, paper, wood, among others), (b) inorganic and this can be recyclable or not (plastic, metals, glass etc.), (c) garbage toxic (batteries, ink, etc.) and (d) highly toxic waste (nuclear and hospital). Thus, garbage can have several origins, among the main ones are household, city, industrial, hospital and radioactive waste. The State is responsible for controlling and administering taxes paid by taxpayers, in this sense, it is its duty to offer waste reuse services to the population. Cities dump a lot of garbage, such as untreated sewage and discharged directly into rivers, solid waste and pollutant emissions from industries. Garbage is not only an environmental problem, but also health and quality of life, thus its collection, treatment and recycling are one of the main public services. In some cities that have garbage collection, this is sent to a specific place called a dump, where huge amounts of debris are found in the open. In other cities there are landfills, places designed to store garbage, in which case the waste is buried and compacted. These places have a disfigured landscape and can be a concentration point for diseases and bad smells. These two types of waste disposal are established in peripheral regions of cities that face strong environmental and social problems. Garbage can often have other destinations, such as uninhabited areas, slopes, rivers and streams, which is a common process in underdeveloped countries. Another not less important point is the social issue arising from the dumps that have made living proof of social exclusion and human degradation. It is common in these places the presence of hundreds of people who daily search for materials and objects that can be sold for the recycling process and also food scraps that are often already spoiled and that are still consumed. The dumps directly reflect the social inequalities present in underdeveloped or developing countries, in addition to making human degradation explicit. Garbage must be treated with care, as it compromises the reserves of natural resources, in addition to polluting and compromising other ecosystem environments.