Recycle a Way to Make the World a Better Place and Stay Humble

by Daniel Antonsson

There is so much good to say about recycling. First of all, it is a crucial part if we want this world to continue to be beautiful. When we hand over this world to the next generation, it is not fair to let them face a planet in such a degenerated state that it is beyond rescue. We all need to take responsibility and do what we can. If we can, why not make a big positive impact on the world and engage ourselves in different environmental projects and make your life matter when it comes down to those questions. With that being said, even the smallest footstep in the right direction is welcome: recycle your garbage, don’t put trash in nature, don’t over consume clothes, and other things.

There are a lot of things that we can do here and now. Taking care of your own trash is a good way of staying humble because it is a way of saying to our fellow world citizens that I care about you. Speaking about staying humble, I have picked cans and bottles to earn some extra income and by doing that, I feel that I appreciate everything that I have even more. I don’t see myself as too fine for going around with my plastic bags going through trash cans in order to find cans to recycle. I do something good for the nature and keep myself grounded and thankful at the same time.

After my work had finished, I used to walk a special route where I knew that I could find a good amount of cans before I took the bus back home from the city. It is free money laying around and here in Sweden, 10 bottles or cans are worth almost 1 dollar. When I walked around listening to music picking my cans, I felt happy. Now I am severely sick with chronic fatigue syndrome and at the moment I cannot go to work, but you get the point. I have had this disease for many years, but because of different factors I have been more sick during the last 12 months and life is hard, but that is another story.

I used to average around 120 dollars a month extra from picking cans, fresh air and some extra money. In the small village where I live, there is a small recycle station that is open 24 hours a day where you can leave plastic, paper, glass and small metal. There is also a small container where you can leave clean and whole clothes that you want to give to people in need. In this case, the clothes are shipped to other countries. If you want to throw away bigger things like your fridge or other environmentally hazardous waste, there is a bigger recycle station that is open a couple of days a week.

When it comes to food, I do my best to not throw anything away. We don’t make more food than what we eat and in the case when something is left, we save it in a plastic container and eat it later. It is a way to take care of both our own resources and the world. It is a good thing that countries, companies, and people in general have started to look into the possibility of putting food that otherwise should have been thrown away into good use. Organizations are starting to collaborate with stores and restaurants to save up food that later will be given away. With so much poverty all over the world, it is a shame that there is still so much food that ends up in the trash. Around one third of all food that is produced in the world is wasted, 1.3 billion tonnes. There is enough food produced in the world to feed everyone, but the food that exists globally does not reach everyone unfortunately.

When it comes to electronic waste like televisions, mobile phones, and computers, there are a lot of bad things happening. Electronic waste is shipped from rich countries and ends up in poor countries, for example West Africa. Informal processing of e-waste in developing countries can lead to adverse human health effects and environmental pollution. It is easy to send away our problems to another part of the world, but that does not mean that we are solving a problem, we are creating one. The constant need for the newest and most high-tech products fuels this industry and horrible numbers of tons of waste are being created each year.

On the positive side, there are agreements made by various organizations globally in an effort to manage and control e-waste. The sad part is that there is so much that needs to be done. Hopefully, we can all work against a more sustainable environment through better recycling.

Daniel Antonsson is a 43 year old Autistic man living in Sweden with his Venezuelan girlfriend and four year old daughter. He has always enjoyed writing about different subjects and being able to publish for the Art of Autism make him feel truly blessed.