How to Manage Waste Effectively After The Holiday Season

Towards the end of each year, we have a holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. It is a pleasure to celebrate these days with our loved ones, accompanied by delicious meals, eye-catching decorations, and carefully selected gifts. On the other hand, it is necessary to think and act more consciously about the shopping and consumption madness triggered by the holiday season. Have you ever thought about what happens to all those gift wrappers, decorations, and leftovers when the plentiful meals are not finished, the gifts are opened, and the decorations come down?

Even in the holiday season, adopting a more sustainable and conscious consumption habit is something everyone should acquire. The garbage generation per household during the holiday season is 25 percent more than the rest of the year because of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Year’s, and Thanksgiving celebrations, only in the US. Think about the trash problems in the world throughout the holiday season! In short, it’s time to develop greener and more eco-friendly ways to deal with holiday waste. Fortunately, with a bit of care, creativity, and smart waste management solutions, eco-friendly disposal of waste is possible!

Consider the Three R’s in Holiday Season: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

As can be seen, in this period, the work falls mainly on individual consumer preferences and more innovative household waste management thanks to advanced technology. Don’t worry, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, almost 80 percent of holiday waste could be recycled or repurposed. Thus, you can have a green holiday season instead of traditional celebrations by taking advantage of the three R’s of sustainability: Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Reuse

Look at what you’ve bought during the season and consider which ones you can reuse. When you start adopting this point of view, you will also begin to prefer more eco-friendly products when purchasing. For example,

• When choosing trees for Christmas and New Year, you can select reusable ones.
• You can keep decorations, especially ribbons and lights, after the celebrations are over, and use them at following parties.
• You can produce the gift wrapping using old packaging, maps, or any item you like.
• When sending gifts, how about using old newspapers instead of non-reusable foams or papers as fillers?
• Ensure that gift bags are reusable.
• Compost the leftovers! Although not every waste is composted, it stands out as a reuse method beneficial to nature.

Reduce

Reducing is especially important for energy-saving and food waste prevention.

• Try not to shop and prepare more food than you need. Food waste is already a significant problem, so it is essential to consume it consciously when preparing holiday dinner tables. Remember, every thrash means loss of natural resources and energy!
• Prefer products with minimal packaging.
• You can save energy by choosing LED for lighting.
• Choose a more efficient and eco-friendly way by buying in bulk.

Recycling

One of the most critical points in waste management is distinguishing between garbage and reusable resources. If you learn what can be recycled and start sorting waste accordingly, you will also contribute to reusable resources for sustainable development. Save energy and resources!

Luckily, you can choose recyclable items from gift selection, even electronic, to the table decorations and Christmas tree, for example, a potted tree. Hence, you will make a notable contribution to the green holiday season! On the other hand, this awareness and household solutions may not be enough if they are not combined with smart waste management solutions.

The Need for Smart Waste Management

There is another point as important as the three R’s for sustainability: How a product can become a secondary resource after it is turned into waste. Although reducing and reusing are important, we cannot use these methods at every waste type or stage. Consequently, a cutting-edge waste management system is required for the circular economy, so that the abundant waste does not cause a problem, namely you need Evreka’s hardware and software products!

Meet with Evreka’s Outstanding Solutions

Evreka has managed to stand out in the waste management sector in more than 20 countries, from the US to Singapore. Its latest technology and its customizable solutions suit the customers’ needs and any use cases. By offering both all-in-one and modular hardware and software solutions, Evreka enables you to easily control every moment from the waste collection stage to recycling and even relations with citizens. Thus, these products eliminate the efficiency problem, usually caused by cost and time loss.

How about combining individual awareness and effort with state-of-the-art waste management systems? Let’s take a closer look at Evreka’s solutions that may be useful during the holiday season.

Engagement

We talked about the importance of household waste management and the responsibilities of its citizens. Therefore, communication between citizens and local authorities is vital. However, there can be many changes in the garbage collection procedure during holidays and most people are not even aware of them! Evreka provides a more helpful communication channel thanks to its Engagement Software. Here:

• People can monitor garbage containers and dumpsters and get directional information about the selected ones.
• Any stakeholder can see the collection days, times, and changes and request a new service.
• Managers can see all requests and feedback from citizens on a single screen and update them according to their citizens’ needs.
• Planning and reporting processes are simplified, and the administrative workload is reduced.

Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) Management

The recycling process is also one of the most effective solutions to managing extraordinarily increased waste during the holidays. Fortunately, Evreka also offers solutions for recycling centers. Thanks to MRF Management, it is possible to benefit from high-quality solutions while obtaining secondary resources from waste. With this software, you can:

• Maximize inbound & outbound control.
• See the material flow data appropriately.
• Control the whole process with a mobile app.
• Increase the efficiency of recycling.

Operations Management

Operations Management Software combines the services Evreka offers, from Fleet Management to Asset Management. Thanks to easy-to-use mobile apps like FieldWork and Evreka360, managers can:

• Have communication, tracking, and delivery with comfortable UI/UX design.
• Revise the tasks in line with real-time data.
• View all feedback from fleets, assets, employees, citizens, and customers in one screen.
• Make more efficient plans thanks to the reporting feature and contribute to the increase of productivity.