The Rotary Club of PH Cosmopolitan joined others in partnership with the Rivers State Carrington Youth Fellows, 2023/2024 cohort to host the much anticipated Waste Inovation and Eradication (W.I.PE ) conference and it was a resounding success.
The speakers and attendees were inclusively selected to include Academia’s, environmental experts from government, nonprofit and business sectors, youth climate advocates, students from secondary schools and teachers and the media.
The event featured keynote addresses, a panel session and a debate competition that provided insight on the theme: Waste Innovation for Environmental sustainability and Economic Development.
The highlight of this epochal convening was the debate competition that had students proposing an opposing the motion that “in the battle against plastic waste pollution, waste reuse and recycling should be prioritized over waste reduction”. The event climaxed with the exhibition of upcycling crafts made by the project beneficiaries.
7Rs of waste management: Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Regift, Recycle.
1. RETHINK: What type of consumer are you? Think about that and how the environment is affected.
2. REFUSE: Make a choice not to buy. Green consumers place themselves at the start of the buy-and-use cycle. They buy less and buy products that do the least harm to the environment.
3. REDUCE: Buy less, buy products that have little or no packaging, and that last a long time, borrow instead of buy, and compost. Items that are no longer needed or used are donated or sold.
4. REUSE: Upcycle instead of throw away. Examples: glass jars can be used to store dry goods, old calendar pages are used as DIY envelopes, old toothbrushes are used to clean hard to reach places, empty toothpaste tubes are used as funnels.
5. REPAIR: Try to fix items before disposing of them. Our current culture has been called a “throwaway society” because more items end up in the landfill than need to. This harms the environment and uses more of the earth’s resources to make new items. We can help conserve the earth’s resources by fixing things and participating in the “Repair Movement”.
6. REGIFT: When you regift, you give someone a gift that you received from someone else. Don’t feel guilty! Passing it on to someone who will enjoy it more than you is a good thing. You just need to follow this etiquette: You are certain the gift is something the recipient would enjoy.
7. RECYCLE (Compost): Put things back into the waste stream to be used again for something else. Glass is used for roads, plastics are melted down to make new products, and the organic waste that we compost is used to fertilize our gardens