Statistics show that the place with highest waste is schools. (Langford) This is very surprising information you might have never think about. No one would believe that a place like school would create a lot of waste. Many people like to think about school as an educational place with a clean and highly organized area. People overlook the problems that are probably created by schools to the society. “More than 53 million children and about 6 million adults spend a significant portion of their days in more than 120,000 public and private school buildings.”(EPA) This shows that most people in the society spend their time in school so schools have big influence in environmental issue to the society. In each single day a huge amount of waste is produced by schools such as paper, water, electricity, food, and other kind of waste. Waste in schools is disposed to landfill, which some do not decompose and create pollution. It causes a school to lose a lot of money to clean up this waste, and spend money for buying new resources. Waste in schools is becoming a big problem in Thailand.
One of the effects caused by waste from schools is that this waste is disposed to landfills. It is found that most of this waste, 85% ends up in landfill, 9% is incinerated, and only 6% is recycled. (Work at Waste at School) Moreover, research shows that about 35% of solid waste is paper and average worldwide annual paper consumption is 48kg per person and mostly produced by schools. That means for every 100 pounds of trash we throw away, about 35 pounds of it is paper. This shows that people do not pay attention to environmental issue and if nothing changes, one day landfills will be scarce and all of the waste will be scattered all over our city. When those organic matters from landfill decomposed they create harmful gas such as methane that effects our environment severely. In addition, the contaminated water from landfill travels from site and contaminate the ground and surface water nearby and landfill is a good breeding area for mosquitoes and rats, which contains diseases that are dangerous to humans. The combustion of waste forms CO2, which pollutes the city and leads to global warming. However, landfilling is just one of the negative effects of waste from schools.
Another major problem of waste from schools is the schools are losing a lot of money to clean up these waste. Schools are losing money for electricity and water that are extravagantly used. Also, in each day school produces huge amount of paper waste. Think about it this way; how much paper do you get in class each day? Maybe about 3-4 sheets or more, so one class (15 students) uses 60 sheets per day, which is a big number. “The average student produces about 320 pounds of paper waste each year.” (green answer) These paper wastes are dumped at landfill without being recycled. Paper is not recycled because there is no recycle bin in any class rooms for teachers and students to conveniently recycle. From this information, it can be predicted that how much it costs each school for the waste that are not used at their full potential. This is causing a school to keep buying new resources. Though, these problems still exist in Thailand.
Most schools in Thailand do not care about environment and do not seriously solve these problems. They pay more attention to student academic work and activities, but not caring if their students learn about environmental problems and care the world. There is no effective solution made by schools in Thailand because even the school themselves do not have enough understanding and knowledge to deal with these problems. With nearly about 8,000 schools all over Thailand, schools have important role to help solving with national waste problem. (MOE) The most important solution is to educate students on environmental issues and implants them to use thing sufficiently because one day these children will grow up and be an important part of the society. Schools should teach their students how to recycle and the harmful effects caused by the waste they produce. Education is the only way to produce a powerful and high-quality population for Thailand. There are also other solutions school can do to promote recycling.
Another way to solve this problem is to start a “separating waste” campaign so that some of the waste can be easily re-use and recycle. Schools can also make centralized print stations and makes a rule for teachers to recycle paper. This would save large amount of paper used in school and also save the school money too. Other things school could do are to change their machines, and electric appliances to be an economized one such as light bulbs. This solution may require a lot of time and money for the changes, but it would certainly help saving the world. These solutions will decrease large number of resources a school needed to buy and money school needed to pay for light, water, etc. and also fewer trees will be cut down, which will allow animals live in their habitats and will not die. This also decreases the rate of flooding and unpredictable catastrophes, which causing people to lose all their money and properties and this may lead them to commit suicide because of stress. “Reducing paper consumption just 10% – the rough equivalent of getting your office to buy paper with more recycled content – would be like taking 280,000 cars off the road.”(thedailygreen) Schools will produce less waste and pollution and the most important thing is that it allows students to learn about caring the environment.
School produces a lot of pollution each day, which has a long term effects to the world and the environment that you may not be able to see it today. This is a time to call for action. Waste from schools is a big number compare to other places, if not dealt with properly, will continue to be a big problem for Thailand, now and in the future. By not dealing with this huge amount of waste, you are contributing death, and unpredictable catastrophes. To solve this problem does not require any difficult work or effort, but only continually actions. This problem is not just for someone to solve it, but for everyone. So let’s start changing yourself for a better world.
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