Trash talk: Understanding our waste problem

Did you know that India produces about 532 million kilos of waste every day?

- Luise Pape for WasteLess

If you lined up all the garbage trucks carrying it, it would create a traffic jam from the most southern tip of India in Kanyakumari all the way to Delhi. Imagine that every single day! But where does all this waste go, and what can we do about it?

What is waste?

Think about the last time you threw something in the bin. Maybe it was a broken toy, an empty chips packet, or leftover food. Waste is basically anything we do not want anymore - things that we think have served their purpose. It comes in different forms: solid, liquid or gaseous, generated through companies manufacturing stuff, household garbage (known as 'municipal solid waste'), sewage, sludge, agricultural waste, and many more.