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1. My idea to change the world
My main “change the world” idea is to show how any type of waste can be 100% available to
be re-used. First there has to be some change in education, create habits, it is easier to work in
this field with little children than to work with adults, just because adults have their own habits
and customs. This new kind of education has to teach first of all, that material synthetic things
are not as important as natural things (natural things that come from environmentally and
socially friendly resource extraction, production, distribution and waste) , a new method of
buying, buy for necessity not for pleasure and when you are certain that you need to buy that
product ask yourself: ¿where did this come from?, ¿does this produce a high impact in its
resource extraction, production and distribution? ¿did this affect the region of the fabric
where is produced?, ¿did this gave a decent kind of work to the people of the region?, ¿how
many time is this going to last?, ¿what is going to happen when its productive life is done?,
first we have to change our way of looking things as disposable things that have short life
times and start to seeing them as gifts of nature, is the same thing when someone borrows
you something, you have to return it the same way they gave it to you.
Second of all governments have to start making supporting campaigns to this new kind of
living, of buying (although it can take years, or centuries but if we continue this kind of
consuming the world is not going to last much longer), they have to make creative ways of
rewarding people or to punishing people for their ecological actions, an example is in
Germany, they have vending machines that receive empty clean plastic bottles and pay in
return the price of the bottle, this way people begin to recycle in a different way, in other
hand, in Russia they have a different method, there are machines that give you a metro ticket
for 20 squats, this way Russian government is supporting people to exercise and fights the
over-weight, a real medical issue in developed countries.
Third of all, developing countries need to look up to countries like Sweden where they had to
import waste from Norway due to their way of recycling, Sweden government began with
recycling, reusing and reducing campaigns decades ago at first it was not easy, but after years
of life changing habits they began to see the results, an average Swedish pulls apart batteries
from glass, cardboard and plastic waste, they also use radiators to warm the water, Sweden
exploits 96% of their solid waste in energy production and the other 4 % that definitely cannot
be re-used goes to landfills, their 60 bus fleet is all fed with this energy their wastes provides,
Bora’s citizens pay 50% less for energy bills and 20% less in the public transport ticket, their
solid waste management it’s so effective that their only problem is they are running out of
energy resources. In the United Kingdom the government has began to reward people who
recycle because of a new imposed rate, this way recycling rates has raised significant figures.
We cannot pretend to see the change tomorrow, a change can take years, all we can do is have
patience and lots and lots of dedication, love for our planet and love for our future.
Silvia Paola Sánchez González 229508