Don’t let the beautiful scenery let you forget that I came here to learn about TRASH.

This study abroad that I’m on is about sustainable waste management and we came to Sardinia because Sardinia has one of the most successful waste management systems in Italy (and because Annalisa is from here). Most cities in Sardinia, including Cagliari, use separate collection, meaning waste is sorted into bins based on material before it’s collected. My apartment has FIVE trash bins: plastic, paper, glass/metal, organic, and residual (everything else). Additionally, they use a pay-as-you throw system where residents only pay to dispose of residual waste and the city records how many times families put their waste bins out for collection. This encourages people to follow the sorting system and produce less waste. Overall the system is really effective and results in very little waste that has to be landfilled. In Europe, most residual waste is burned in waste-to-energy facilities, which further decreases the amount that needs to be landfilled. 

So yesterday we did a technical visit to a waste management facility and it was pretty cool. The facility processes all types of waste. It had a large portion dedicated to organic waste, which gets composted, but we didn’t look at that part much because it’s smelly. The facility used different methods to sort waste, one of which was a laser sensor thing that can sort plastic by color or polymer. 

Below is a picture of piles of plastic that had been sorted by color/material. The structure above had workers who were manually removing incorrect materials as they came across a pretty fast-moving conveyor belt.

The materials got made into dense cubes which can be sold and transported. The blue and green plastic ones were my favorite. 

The residual waste (things that can’t be recycled or composted) was also made into dense cubes so that it can be placed in a landfill. The region that this facility serves doesn’t burn their waste for energy but the cubes are placed in the landfill with a thin plastic cover so that in the future they can easily be removed and used for energy. Check out this cool mountain of residual trash!

My class was having a good time at the facility and we were taking a lot of pictures with the trash. I think the workers at the plant were confused about why we were there in the first place and why we were taking so many pictures. I can’t help the fact that trash is so exciting. 

Also, at the facility I saw a band of five cats but they were too far away for me to get a picture. 

I guess I’ll begrudgingly go back to sightseeing now…