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The importance of sorting

Have you thought about what you will leave behind for your children and future generations? A clean, tidy environment, or a life among piles of waste? On average, each person in Latvia produces more than 400 kilograms of waste a year, most of which is permanently disposed of in landfills, but landfill resources are decreasing every year.

The way to reduce household waste is to sort it properly. Waste sorting promotes the recycling of raw materials, significantly reduces the negative impact on the environment and saves our natural resources.

Recycling waste

Recyclable materials, such as PET bottles, glass bottles and jars, paper and cardboard, electrical appliances, batteries and other man-made waste, have a certain life cycle, just like people or other living organisms.

• Recycling of plastic

  The average amount of plastic packaging produced in Latvia per year is 35 900 tonnes, of which around 14 493 tonnes or 46% is recycled. Reusing or recycling plastic packaging not only saves oil resources, but also protects the atmosphere from greenhouse gases and other environmental pollutants, for example, recycling 1 tonne of plastic saves 1.8 tonnes of oil.

• Paper recycling

  Cellulose fibres can be recycled up to seven times, and this is why it is important to put any recyclable paper, such as newspapers, magazines, office paper and cardboard boxes, in the corresponding recycling containers. Paper thrown in recycling containers can be recycled, which can then be used to produce packaging and other paper products.

• Recycling of glass jars and bottles

  One tonne of recycled glass saves one tonne of quartz sand and 250 kg of soda ash. Producing glass from recycled materials saves natural resources, energy and reduces environmental pollution. To be able to save these resources, used-up glass packaging should be discarded into the appropriate waste recycling containers, which waste management companies then send to recycling companies to create new glass products.

• Recycling of electrical appliances

  Electrical appliances are environmentally harmful waste and must be disposed of responsibly. Any electrical equipment can contain substances that are harmful to the environment, such as Freon in fridges, etc. It is therefore essential to prevent them from entering the environment. Everyone in Latvia already has the opportunity to take their worn out electrical appliances to more than 70 waste sorting sites across Latvia free of charge.

• Recycling of batteries

  If batteries, just like electronics, are not recycled, they end up in the environment, causing toxic pollution that harms both the environment and human health. A single finger battery left on the ground causes in soil pollution of about one square metre, which can persist for almost a century. By contrast, when batteries are sorted, they are recycled, thus creating new things from the raw materials, which eliminates the use of virgin natural materials in production. You can dispose of your everyday batteries at sales outlets such as RIMI, Maxima and petrol stations.

• Recycling of textile

  One may think that when textiles go to landfill they have no negative impact, but that is actually false: synthetic fibres, which make up 60% of textiles, take around 200 years to decompose. Over time chemicals start to spread into the environment, and textiles continue to grow the landfill mountain. We therefore encourage people to consider whether they really need to buy another item of clothing, or whether they can reuse or recycle what they no longer need. The sorted material is repurposed, i.e. reused in developing countries around the world or recycled.