What waste can be recycled at home. A short course on recycling waste at home. Useful video about recycling
Having trouble dealing with trash at home? A little more attention to this and you will learn how to manage household waste and recycle at home. With proper planning, you can save money and have less impact on your environment.
Step 1: Reduce Waste
Use a cloth bag instead of a plastic one
This small measure will significantly reduce the amount of waste you bring home. No matter where you shop, bring your own reusable cloth bags instead of buying plastic bags from the store. Prepare ahead of time and buy a few reusable bags and keep them in a visible place so you don't forget your bag the next time you go shopping. For example, in the kitchen or in the trunk of a car.
- If you forget to take your bags to the store, you can still reduce your waste! Most stores now sell cloth or paper bags.
- The use of such packages extends not only to products. Take one when you go shopping for clothes, tools or any other goods.
Buy food that has less packaging
Products that come in boxes wrapped in plastic with individually wrapped portions inside certainly generate more waste than can be avoided. Look for foods with minimal packaging, especially plastic and polyethylene, and you'll see your trash pile shrink in size. Here are a few nuances:
- Buy bulk products by weight. It would be good if the store has paper bags for such goods.
- Store food in airtight glass or plastic containers.
- It is better to take dairy products in glass containers, a great option is farmers markets.
Method 1. Recycling food waste - composting with worms
This method of recycling waste at home allows you to quickly compost food waste with almost no odor.
Pick up a box. This will be a home for the worms, and a place where they digest the organic material you put in for them. You can buy it at a farm store or make it yourself. Suitable materials:
- rubber - cheap, simple and durable;
- galvanized containers;
- wood - provides better air exchange, but then you need to use wood that has not been chemically treated;
- plastic buckets 20 liters;
Ventilation. The receptacle for home waste recycling must be well inspected. The holes must be made large, otherwise the worms will remain below and die.
Size. For every 500 grams of worms you need about 1 square meter of area. Depth no more than 60 cm.
Lid. The container should have a lid to prevent light from shining on the compost and preventing the substance from drying out. You can simply use a lid of a suitable size, a tarpaulin with fastenings, wood, burlap (then you can water directly).
Base. At this home recycling station, you can create a fence to separate it from the premises. Suitable:
- old tires,
- boards and bricks and so on.
Room. The container should be in a cool place to avoid overheating. In the yard - in the shade, under a tree, in a garage or shed.
Internal Ecosystem
Fill the bin with pieces of corrugated cardboard or newspaper, straw, dry grass or some similar material. This will provide a source of fiber and support ventilation. Add a handful of dirt and water thoroughly. Let the water soak in for a day before adding the worms.
This flowerbed will eventually turn into a rich nutrients compost.
Avoid putting pine, redwood, or eucalyptus leaves into the box. Majority brown leaves acceptable to worms.
Choose your worms
There are several varieties of worms that are suitable for vermicomposting. Simply digging up earthworms is not recommended. You should buy a pound of worms from a gardening store or online.
The most commonly used worms are:
- Eisenia fetida,
- Eisenia hortensis.
They are able to eat a lot (more than half their weight), reproduce quickly, and feed on paper.
How often to load trash and collect compost
You need to add garbage regularly. Worms eat fruit and vegetable scraps, bread, grains, tea, coffee, shells - almost anything that people eat. If you shred the garbage, the worms will process it faster. It needs to be mixed with the soil in the box to prevent midges.
You need to water the box every other day. Once a month you need to add potato peelings, paper or hay to create fibrous material.
Compost can be made for 3-6 months.
What not to do!
Don't feed the worms too often or too much. If your compost bin starts to smell, it may be because you are feeding your worms more than they can handle.
The following products are not suitable:
- a lot of citrus fruits - no more than 1/5 of total number worms;
- Meat or fish;
- Fats or excessively fatty waste;
- Dairy products (except shells);
- Cat or dog feces;
- Twigs.
Cleaning
Composting involves sacrificing some worms. Separate the worms from the mass; you will put them into a new blank in the same box. If you don't need your hands and rubber gloves, there is a long way: tilt the container and add new fibrous materials, water, etc. to the free side. The worms will crawl there themselves over time.
Method 2. Storing garbage in the freezer
If you don’t want to create an exotarium, you can store organic waste in the freezer. It is better to use paper bags or just lay them on the litter. Then, when the space is full, the garbage is dumped into one bag and taken to the country house in a compost heap or to a landfill.
Method 3. Automatic composter for the kitchen
Most often, they look like a trash can, tightly closed so as not to spread the smell, but the trouble is that devices for home waste recycling are expensive. For example, NatureMill will cost about 10 thousand, and finding it in the store is not so easy. Please note:
- what type of waste can this model process;
- what time will she do it;
- what is the permissible volume and is it sufficient for your family;
- what principle is the model based on: there are also vermicomposters that operate according to the principle with worms described above. If this disgusts you, it is better to choose a device that uses microorganisms or heat to process waste at home.
Home toilets with recycling
A composting toilet contains a special tank where the backfill is placed and the sewage can be processed into compost. Such equipment is especially valuable for a country house and an estate with a plot. These toilets are cleaned once a year. There are models that run on electricity, and there are manual ones (you can make them yourself).
Popular options:
- Separett Villa 9000 (dry toilet, works without filler)
- Biolet Mulltoa 20
- Biolan Populette
There are different operating principles:
- Removal of water, salts and other things from a mass, that is, separation into solid and liquid parts, each placed in its own container. This dry toilet must be ventilated.
- Peat toilets, in which the mass is filled with granules on top and the smell does not spread: there are devices with a dispenser, and others with manual filling.
- Toilets in which sewage is burned through an incandescent coil or over an open fire. They require a powerful filter and a high degree of protection to prevent odors and fire from spreading. The result is water and ash (which is suitable as fertilizer).
- Freezer toilets. They do not allow recycling of waste at home, but only prevent the spread of odors if the house is not connected to a sewer.
Due to its versatility, low cost and durability, plastic has found its application in all spheres of life. Today, plastic is the most common artificial material on the planet. He's also first on the garbage list. The amount of plastic waste on the planet is reaching epidemic proportions. Many scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs began to pay attention to this problem.
Industrial machines for recycling plastic are usually very expensive and quite complex in design. And let's face it, industrial scale Recycling plastic doesn't pay. Because the production cycle is “ raw material - plastic product"much shorter and cheaper than - " garbage - sorting - plastic product - recycling - cleaning - raw materials - plastic product" That is why not all cities in the world have factories for processing plastic waste. And their mass appearance is not expected in the near future.
It turns out that the niche recycling plastic at home open. And it is waiting for those who monetize it from any side. A to the common man you don't need much. After all, the beauty of this niche is that waste plastic, essentially garbage, lies under everyone’s feet and is of no use to anyone. That is, excellent and durable material - for free! All that remains is to pick it up, process it in one form or another, and reuse it. And if you don’t like the result, rework it again!
Project " Precious Plastic» helps all consumers give up plastic waste new life. He invites everyone to recycle plastic on their own using household machines, the drawings of which are freely distributed on the Internet.
This project, developed by a Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, shows what can be done to help stop the "plastic plague" in the environment.
Dave, concerned about the problem of plastic waste, found on the Internet drawings of several devices that allow him to somehow recycle plastic at home. Having collected the first samples, improved them, and developed a modular concept for future devices, Hakkens created international project « Precious Plastic" In which he invites everyone to assemble and use four simple but effective plastic recycling machines.
The use of devices allows you to extend the service life of various plastic household items by simply recycling them into others. Unnecessary to necessary. Dishes, artificial rattan, various interior elements - here is a small list of items that can be made from household plastic waste using these machines.
Four devices, depending on the type and quality of the plastic, allow it to be processed in different ways:
- Shredder or shredder - a device for grinding plastic waste into crumbs for subsequent processing - heating;
- Extruder or extruder - a device that extrudes a heated plastic mass in the form of a rope or tape. That is, the result is artificial rattan or consumables for a 3D printer.
- Injector or an injector - heats the polymer crumbs to a plastic mass and injects them into the desired shape;
- Press- plastic crumb under pressure and high temperature pressed into various new items.
The most amazing thing about the project “ Precious Plastic"what are they unique cars are distributed free of charge. More precisely, the drawings of the device and instructions for assembling them are available to everyone (video instructions will be below). All that remains is to assemble the cars and start making money on them.
How to make money by recycling plastic at home? Recycling plastics and polymers at home!
Firstly. By recycling unnecessary plastic into useful plastic products and selling them as unique handmade items. This is the simplest and most affordable solution.
Secondly. Entire creative laboratories and coworking spaces are opening based on Hakkens machines. Where anyone can come with their plastic waste, pay money, and work on the devices.
Third. Assistance in assembling and selling devices. Not everyone can master device drawings. And, moreover, collect them. But they are ready to buy assembled similar machines. Why not take advantage of this? Moreover, ready-made devices are quite expensive. Assembly, if you have everything you need, will take no more than a month for any handy guy in the garage.
Fourth. You definitely have your own ideas!
Video No. 1: how to assemble a shredder for shredding plastic
Video No. 2: how to assemble an extruder for plastic processing
Video No. 3: how to assemble an injector for plastic recycling
Video No. 4: how to assemble a press for plastic recycling
So, after studying the video, you can start assembling the devices. For more convenient work, we suggest you study the drawings on the official website of the project. In English.
If the devices are too complicated, you can look at a simple way to recycle plastic bottles at home.
Bonus: the simplest device for cutting plastic bottles
Appeared on Kickstarter new project « Plastic Bottle Cutter”, which gives consumers the opportunity to reuse plastic bottles.
The simplest device (and you will see this when you see the photo below) allows you to turn an ordinary plastic bottle into a plastic thread of various thicknesses, which can be used at your discretion.
From this thread you can weave various items- from small baskets to elegant pieces of furniture.
In general, disposable plastic bottles are a valuable resource due to the fact that the highest quality plastic is used in their production. But this advantage is not taken into account by most people and the bottles are simply thrown away. The rate of bottle throwing is increasing every day. Thus, the problem of effective reuse and recycling these materials is simply necessary and mandatory. This will reduce environmental pollution.
Food waste definitely appear in household and usually end up in a landfill. After all, few people think about the fact that they can be recycled and how they can dispose of waste at home. In particular, you can turn spoiled food or its remains into fertilizer or into healthy animal feed.
Knowing how to properly recycle leftover food can save you money and have less of a negative impact on the environment.
The problem of food waste disposal
The population of the Earth is constantly increasing, and therefore the amount of food is increasing, and with it the amount of garbage thrown away.
Garbage of organic origin quickly decomposes, turning into good environment for the appearance and reproduction of harmful microbes, as well as larger living organisms: insects and rodents.
This type of waste is not dangerous in itself. But if too much accumulates, it begins to rot. This may lead to the development of an infection.
Methods for recycling food waste
Recycling waste at home can be done in many ways. The more of them involved, the more effective this effort will be in saving money and protecting the environment.
One of the ways to positively influence the environment is not even by recycling garbage in a private home, but by reducing its amount. Usually food is bought and brought home in a plastic container and a plastic bag, which in itself is already garbage. Such actions are not justified, not only from an environmental point of view, but also from an economic one. After all plastic bag at best, it is disposable (although often it may not be enough even for one time). Therefore, for each new portion of products purchased in the store, if not every day, then every other day, you have to purchase a new package. It is much more practical to purchase a fabric bag once and constantly bring groceries in it.
And if you don’t even have a bag at hand when you need to go to the store urgently, you can buy a paper bag.
And as for plastic containers, in which products are usually sold, then their quantity can also be reduced, trying to always purchase food with the least amount of packaging.
One of the most profitable and most effective options get rid of unnecessary food residues - processing food waste into fertilizers. And most quick way– composting using worms.
To do this, you first need to find a box that will be used as a home for the worms. Here they will process substances. You can buy such a box at a farm store. But it’s more profitable to make it yourself from wood, rubber, zinc. Plastic buckets can also serve as boxes.
It is important to ensure that worms do not enter the house a large number of air. To do this, the box must be provided with holes. large diameter.
The soil must be laid so that the thickness of its layer does not exceed 60 cm. For each square meter area requires 0.5 kg of worms.
The box must have a lid and be located in a cool place where there is not a lot of light.
As for the worms themselves, most often they choose one of two species: Eisenia fetida or Eisenia hortensis. They eat a lot, quickly increase their numbers and even destroy paper products.
The smaller the garbage, the faster the worms will turn it into compost and the more efficient it will be to process food waste at home.
The composting toilet is equipped with a special tank into which food waste is placed. This technique is best used on personal plot. These toilets are cleaned once a year. Some models run on electricity.
Let's list the most common operating principles.
1. Separation of waste into solid and liquid.
2. Peat toilets, in which waste is filled with granules, which prevents the spread of odor.
3. Toilets with a powerful filter, in which unnecessary substances are burned either directly on the fire or through a filament.
4. Freeze-proof unpleasant odors.
For those who want to process leftover food, special composters are developed and produced. They can be used at home by installing them directly in the kitchen. They will constantly eliminate waste, turning it into something useful for cultivated plants fertilizers The operating principle of many of these devices is based on the use of the same worms. Such devices are called vermicomposters (here there is a connection with English word"worm" - "worm").
And there are also models that run on electricity. There is no need to put worms in them. They are more convenient to use, but also more expensive.
And some composter models work thanks to fermented bokashi microorganisms, which are grown on wheat bran.
Recycling waste in a private home is no less important than in the city. However, residents rural areas have some advantages, since they can use special technology to turn waste into feed for animals, for example, for pigs or cows.
Processing waste into food for livestock is no longer new technology. It began to be practiced successfully back in the 20th century, when bone meal began to actively produce compound feed. The process begins by turning the waste into granules. Then they are kept for a long time in containers from which all the air has previously been pumped out. This food has only one significant drawback - it is poorly digestible.
Thanks to modern technologies You can recycle spoiled food into feed High Quality. The waste is exposed to intense pressure and high temperature, which leads to the destruction of harmful microbes. The result is food containing sufficient amounts of protein and fat.
Various organic waste
Food waste comes in several main types. Let's list them.
1. Appearing during the production of products;
2. Coming from enterprises Catering;
3. Food products whose expiration date has expired;
4. Defective products that have spoiled as a result of damage to the container in which they were stored or transported.
The waste that appears in our homes every day belongs to categories 3 and 4.
There are also 5 classes of waste, each of which has its own level of danger. The most dangerous is 1st class. And class 5 products are completely harmless. Food waste is in the 4th and 5th classes. The recovery period for class 4 waste is 3 years.
What waste can be recycled at home?
Many organic matter can be recycled through composting. Almost any plant waste can be used to turn into fertilizers. Composting is not only suitable for animal products and oils. Also, under no circumstances should you make compost from diseased plants, cigarettes, or paper. Only organic matter can be used for composting.
Recycling waste at home is one of the most important points for those who love nature and care about it. There are always many items in our homes that can be reused or recycled. And if you do not pay attention to the fact that manufacturers food products call for disposable packaging, new items can be looked at with a completely different perspective. Almost any old used item can be turned back into some useful item: either use it in some other way, or recycle it yourself.
For example, an item that ends up in the trash can as soon as it was purchased - a plastic bottle can be found in many worthy uses. However, when recycling a plastic bottle, you need to remember that when exposed to high temperatures, it begins to release toxic substances.
The same goes for plastic bags. You can make many beautiful products from them. It is also not recommended to burn them.
From wooden bottle caps you can make a stand for hot dishes, small floor mats and many other useful and beautiful products.
Recycling your own waste
The bulk of the bags thrown away every day are garbage bins constitute organic matter. And knowing how to recycle garbage at home, you can turn it into compost and do two useful things at the same time. Firstly, nature will be less polluted. And, secondly, a certain amount of fertilizer will appear, which can then be taken to a country plot or simply poured into a pot with a houseplant standing on the windowsill.
We live in a consumer society. Every day we throw away a significant amount of garbage, without thinking at all about what happens to it next. Since the standard of living, and with it the volume of consumption, is constantly growing, the volume of waste is also increasing every year.Composting is an ideal way to recycle solid waste at home and has been known to mankind since time immemorial. This is not surprising, because from ordinary garbage you can get compost, which is an indispensable organic fertilizer for the garden. The composting process breaks down the organic matter in the waste. beneficial microorganisms, and are converted into valuable organic fertilizers. Moreover, in order to start processing household waste in this way, you don’t need to make any serious efforts at all, you just need to equip a compost pit.
In one or two summers, organic waste completely rots, turning into fertile inorganic humus, which is rich in minerals and is an excellent fertilizer for many types of plants. It is also convenient that you can add into compost anything that can rot quickly enough: food debris, weeded weeds, fallen leaves, manure, paper and other household waste.
In addition, gardeners have noticed that plants such as zucchini, pumpkin and squash grow well on compost. Therefore, you can combine business with pleasure and plant these crops directly on the compost heap so that the land does not go to waste.
The composting method, provided it is implemented correctly, is good for its “waste-free” nature, since it allows you to kill two birds with one stone: firstly, it makes it possible to constantly maintain order in the house and on the site, getting rid of garbage in a timely manner, and secondly, - Thanks to it, you can recycle unnecessary waste into high-quality fertilizer for free.
Bioreactor for the destruction of household waste.
The simplest biogas plants can be used as treatment facilities for recycling waste at home. The advantage of using them is that, in addition to simple recycling of solid household waste, with such a device you can obtain energy that can be used for a variety of purposes - heating the installation itself, organizing domestic gas supply, generating thermal and electrical energy. Well, if you start enriching the biogas obtained at home from household waste (increasing the methane content in it), then you can even fuel cars with it.
The benefits of a biogas plant are as follows:
- Ecological. Thanks to waste disposal in this way, it is possible to significantly reduce emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere that enter as a result of traditional waste incineration;
- Energy. When recycling household waste in this way, heat and electricity can be obtained from the resulting biogas;
- Economic. Thanks to the construction of a biogas plant, you can significantly save money on waste disposal;
- The installation can be used as an autonomous energy source for remote regions. After all, it is far from a secret that even today many houses in remote corners of Russia are heated with wood. And the installation of such a biogas station would be an excellent solution for residents of such regions;
- Biogas plants, ideal for recycling household waste, can be freely located in any region since they do not require the construction of complex infrastructure;
- Biogas plant running on household waste subject to the constant availability of raw materials, it can partially provide heat and electricity to small villages, making them completely independent;
- Biogas obtained from household waste can be used as an excellent fuel for internal combustion engines.