It’s time to admit, sooner or later we are all faced with the question: what to do with the huge number of things that fill our apartments over the years? To leave – there is no place, to throw out – it’s a pity. What to do? Some things can be recycled, some can be donated to charities, and some can be used to create new items. Natalya Beneslavskaya, head of the ecology and social responsibility department of IKEA, will tell you how to more consciously approach the process of getting rid of garbage.
Reducing the amount of waste and learning how to sort it according to everyone’s strength is not as laborious a process as many imagine. Paper, cardboard, plastic and metal can be recyclable, and some food waste, such as coffee grounds, can be used to feed domestic plants. The sorting yard is easy to organize from small containers in a place convenient for you – in the kitchen, in the corridor, on the balcony or in the entrance. In the latter case, you can negotiate with your neighbors and sort the garbage together. Separately collected garbage is accepted at special collection points. On the map you can find containers closest to your home. Sometimes housekeeping services arrange for a centralized collection of sorted waste on certain days – ask if this is not the case in your area.
Do not rush to throw away old clothes and unnecessary textiles! Even the most hopeless things can be recycled. There are several charity shops in Moscow that are engaged in turning things that are unnecessary for some people into a useful resource for others. For example, the Second Wind charitable foundation, created with the support of the Charity Shop, and IKEA invite everyone to recycle old bed linen. The kits in good condition are sent to the laundry and handed over to those in need. And all linen unsuitable for further service goes to the manufacture of cleaning materials that are in demand in factories, printing houses, laboratories and car services. In almost every city there are charitable organizations that donate clothes and textiles to families who find themselves in difficult life situations. By donating your unwanted items to recycling or charity, you can help reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. Also in Moscow, the number of containers of the Second Wind fund for receiving unnecessary clothes is increasing. The clothes you bring will be donated to low-income families or recycled.
Yes, among household waste there are also those that in no case should be thrown into the general trash can – they need special disposal. For example, batteries and mercury lamps. They contain harmful substances that, when decomposed, pollute the earth, harm animals and plants. To protect the environment, batteries and lamps can be recycled at any IKEA store. Since the launch of the service, visitors have already handed over almost 100 tons of batteries and saved 9000 hectares of land from pollution (one battery pollutes about 20 square meters with heavy metals).
If it is still difficult to part with unnecessary things, you can go upcycling. Upcycling is a growing green trend. Its essence is that unnecessary things can be given a second life. As a result of creative processing, unique hand-made things are born: from designer accessories to new pieces of furniture.