Control Measures - 3R:

1] Reduce:

• Changing the habits of shopping, working and playing can reduce our waste. There's a ton of ways to reduce waste, saving some time and money and being good to the Earth at the same time.
• By reducing and reusing, consumers and industry can save natural resources and reduce waste management costs. Waste prevention, or source reduction, is the strategy behind reducing and reusing waste.
• By designing, manufacturing, purchasing, or using materials in ways that generate less waste, fewer natural resources are used.

2] Reuse:

• Reuse is the best policy for resource conservation. To reuse is to use an item again after is been used. This includes conventional reuse where the item is used again for the same function and new-life reuse where it is used for a different function.
• Example of conventional reuse is refillable milk bottles, retreading of tires and the use of returnable/reusable plastic boxes, shipping containers etc.
• Scientific research has shown that re-using a product can reduce CCb emissions and carbon footprint by more than 50% relative to the complete product life cycle.
• Rising wages and consequent consumer demand for disposable products has made the reuse of low value items uneconomic.
• But current environmental awareness is gradually changing attitudes and regulations, such as the new packaging regulations, are gradually beginning to reverse the situation.

3] Recycling:

• Recycling is breaking down of an item into raw materials which are then used to make new potentially useful materials. Recyclable materials include many kinds of glass, paper, metal, plastic, textiles, and electronics. Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. Collecting used bottles, cans, and newspapers and taking them to the curb or to a collection facility is just the first in a series of steps that generates a host of financial, environmental, and social returns.
• Recycling of a material may produce a fresh supply of the same material-for example used office paper would be converted into new office paper, or used foamed polystyrene into new polystyrene. Sometimes recycling is difficult or too expensive so “recycling” of many products or materials may involve their reuse in producing different materials (e.g.. paperboard) instead.
• Another form of recycling is the salvage of certain materials from complex products, either due to their intrinsic value e.g., lead from car batteries, or gold from computer components, or due to their hazardous nature (e.g., removal and reuse of mercury from various items).
• Recycling is a key component of modern waste reduction and is the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” waste hierarchy.

4] Recover

• It is another important method to minimize waste. It is mostly applicable to electronic items, e-waste, and also plastic, ceramic, acrylic etc.
• Recovery can be defined in simple words as, “ a process which relates to waste, wherein most of the materials before destroying, is checked for its usefulness, and the useful part is isolated / revived to put to use again.”. This is what is called recovering.
• Reusing, recycling and composting (for food leftovers) are the most frequently used methods for recovering waste. But When it’s not possible to reuse or recycle objects - such as dead batteries, ink cartridges or cell phones, which all contain toxic elements labelled hazardous household waste - there is one last option before throwing them away i.e. the scrap dealers, recycling workers and recoverers.
• Example : Printer cartridges : These are refurbished by a process - by replacing some elements and adding powder or ink. Such Recycled cartridges are of equal quality, and sometimes even of higher quality than the original ones
• Similar way several items can be recovered. E.g. Cell phones. Printer cartridges, Rechargeable batteries ; Car batteries and batteries. Used oil. their containers and filters. Unused tires, CD and DVD: Plastic items etc.